Man dies while de-icing plane at Calgary airport

[Highflyinpilot]

First off

my Condolences to the family,

Being an industrial welder/millwright, i use a five point harness quite often, and i must say no matter how uncomfortable it is i still use it everytime for anything over 8 feet, even if it is working at heights to tighten one bolt, i will put my harness on without even thinking about it. I have also refused to work with a co-worker who did not use a harness while working at heights, why? because i do not want to witness a co worker fall and be seriously injured, or worse.

if the basket on a deice truck is anything like a basket on a zoom boom or a scissor lift, i can assure you that it has a place designated to tie off.


I am aware that we do not know the circumstances if the individual wore or didnt wear one, and it is irrelevant at this time, but i just wanted to chime in on this harness subject as I use them quite often.

[Black Cat]

This is criminal. The company should be held liable for this. We have to wear a harness for any height over 8ft. My condolences to the family and friends.

It is hard to believe that in Canada in this day and age you can have an unsecured worker at those heights. Truly tragic, my best to the family and co-workers.

stl

We taxied by, his harness was hanging over the side of the basket. You can make it out in the previous photo if your looking for it. Was a very disturbing site. A sad day in YYC. Thoughts and prayers go out to his family

[whiteguy]

We taxied by, his harness was hanging over the side of the basket. You can make it out in the previous photo if your looking for it. Was a very disturbing site. A sad day in YYC. Thoughts and prayers go out to his family

It was actually the hose and nozzle used to spray that was hanging over the side.

[linecrew]

Does anyone know if this was one of the solo operated machines where you can drive the vehicle from the bucket like the ones Aero Mag uses?

[C-GGGQ]

As an ex employee of only a couple of months I can clear up a few things. First no that is not the type of truck that is one man. The open buckets are all two man, the enclosed ones are one man. second every time we go into the open buckets we are required to wear a full harness, in the closed buckets seat belts are mandatory. Very sad story. Interesting to see what really happened. The company (at least at the Toronto Facility) is very safety conscious. Its 6 weeks of training initial and a week of recurrent every year. To contrast Air Canada gave me the same training in 1 day. then we walked around the truck and i was signed off. At Servisair I was in a class of 20, 10 of us made it out of the classroom, 5 made it through probation, and now that i have left there is 1 remaining guy from my initial training class. this was all over the course of 1 year. They are basically overtrained there, the training is to weed out the majority of the candidates.

PS. I left cause I moved, not because I had an issue with the company. Other than low pay (sadly the cashier at costco starts at 3 dollars more an hour) and a ridiculous wait for benefits they treated me great.

[AEROBAT]

I last worked the ramp 5 yrs ago. We did all the loading/unloading and deicing too. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I wore the harness to deice. It was cumbersome and wasn't comfortable to wear. I look back on that and realize how stupid I was.

If something had happened, I don't think it would have been fair to blame my employer. I knew that the harness was required, but chose not to use it.

It's a hard lesson to learn.

My condolences to this man's family.

+1 exactly

[linecrew]

The open buckets are all two man, the enclosed ones are one man.

The reason I ask is because they have open bucket, one man units that you can drive from up in the bucket at our airport like these ones:

http://aeromag-cle.com/gamma.htm

[C-GGGQ]

yeah, I'm PRETTY sure we don't have any of those. We didn't in Toronto. Possible the Calgary base has them. Wouldn't know for sure.

[rightseatwonder]

is it known for sure that he wasn't wearing a harness at all? was he wearing it and didn't connect it, was he wearing it and connected it and it broke/connected it wrong/slipped out?

Will we ever know?

[C-GGGQ]

I last worked the ramp 5 yrs ago. We did all the loading/unloading and deicing too. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I wore the harness to deice. It was cumbersome and wasn't comfortable to wear. I look back on that and realize how stupid I was.

If something had happened, I don't think it would have been fair to blame my employer. I knew that the harness was required, but chose not to use it.

It's a hard lesson to learn.

My condolences to this man's family.

+1 exactly

Just heard back from my friends there. This seems to be exactly it. Guy with lots of experience an seniority figured he could get away with not wearing a harness. Also with the one man operated ones (if it was that model) if you let go of the joystick that steers the vehicle the brakes clamp on. If you are elevated it shakes and sways the cab QUITE a bit. Definitely would be enough to through you out of an open bucket if you were say leaning out to get a spot and your hand slipped off. Just a theory.

[whiteguy]

The open buckets are all two man, the enclosed ones are one man. To contrast Air Canada gave me the same training in 1 day. then we walked around the truck and i was signed off.

The enclosed buckets at AC are 2 man operations.

6 weeks of training for de-icing???? I doubt it. Air Canada's training is an 8 hour course in the class room then another day out on the trucks. Also a recurrent class every year.

[C-GGGQ]

Swear to god, 4 weeks classroom 2 weeks practical. It's mind numbing. At Air Canada the training is to quickly take rampies from inside and qualify them at de-icing, At Servisair its to weed out applicants off the street. Might have been 3 weeks classroom and 2 practical.

[Loonie1]

Hi,

first my Condolences to the family from Munich airport deicing.

We operate these unit as one man as well.

But its only one µ of 23 Vestergaard Beta. So every employer should see that it´s not only comfort for his employee to operate with a cabin, it´s safety!

Bye and have much snow

loonie1

[cyxe]

I last worked the ramp 5 yrs ago. We did all the loading/unloading and deicing too. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I wore the harness to deice. It was cumbersome and wasn't comfortable to wear. I look back on that and realize how stupid I was.

If something had happened, I don't think it would have been fair to blame my employer. I knew that the harness was required, but chose not to use it.

It's a hard lesson to learn.

My condolences to this man's family.

+1 exactly

Fair or not (IMO its fair) the employer is responsible along with the worker. If lack of use of those harnesses is as prevalent as you say, then that speaks to the safety culture of the management there, with all due respect. Claiming "ignorance" (on the employers part) is even worse.