An airline proletarian die after being consume into the engine of an plane at San Antonio International Airport in Texas on Friday .
The plane was an Airbus A319 operate by Delta Air Lines that was arriving in San Antonio from Los Angeles , accord to a statement from the National Transportation Safety Board shared withNPR . The plane was reportedly taxiing on one locomotive to the gate when a actor on the track was sucked into the turbine and killed instantaneously .
Airplanes like this are often power by high - shunt turbofan engines , which fundamentally intake immense amounts of air into compressing chamber to pump out thrust . These engines are improbably powerful , capable oftaking in 1.2 million tons of air per second at full top executive .
Despite this immense power , incidences of deaths involving the engine are relatively rare considering how many commercial-grade flights take off each day globally . Boeing , a major airplane producer and competitor to Airbus , claimsthere have been 33 recorded incidents of fatal ingestion involving their 737 - 100/-200 aircraft since 1969 , plus four reports involve their 737 - 300/-400/-500 and Next - Generation 737 plane .
However , it is the 2d meter such a death has occurred in the US within a year . Courtney Edwards , a 34 - year - quondam ground doer , kick the bucket at Montgomery Regional Airport Alabama on New Year ’s Eve 2022 as a event of being take into the locomotive . An investigationreportedlyconcluded that the fatal accident was a resultant of her breaking safety protocols by repeatedly walk too close to the planer ’s engine when it was left hightail it for a cooldown period .
It ’s still ill-defined why the incident at San Antonio International Airport last workweek happen , but an investigation is afoot .
“ From our initial investigation , this incident was unrelated to Unifi ’s in operation processes , condom procedures , and policies , ” Unifi , the third - party contract which employ the anonymous soul , said in a statement toBBC News .
A Delta spokesperson tell the airline was " heartbroken " over the death of an " aviation family appendage ’s life " .
