As of: January 26, 2024, 6:02 a.m
By: Romina Kunze
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The gust of wind from the turbine knocks over an escalator.
The ground crew narrowly escapes.
A video captures the breakdown, which almost became a tragedy.
Caxias do Sul – The memories of the incident involving a damaged Boeing 737 MAX 9, which narrowly avoided disaster, are still fresh for many people.
In Brazil, a similar fatal incident in the aircraft industry recently came close - although not in the air, but on the ground.
Airplane turbine knocks over escalator: ground crew escapes
The apron of an airport can be an extremely dangerous place, and it's not for nothing that strict rules apply there.
Unauthorized persons or passengers generally have no business there.
Anyone who endangers the processes must expect severe penalties, as do members of the activist group “Last Generation”.
How dangerous it is even without third-party intervention is shown not only by the fatal collision between two machines in Tokyo at the beginning of January 2024, but also by an incident in the south of Brazil.
Negligence or just carelessness?
Either way, the following incident certainly should not have happened to trained personnel.
A video on X (formerly Twitter) shows several ground crew members having a conversation next to a free-standing escalator.
From the fluttering of their clothes, it can be seen that a strong wind suddenly picked up.
The stairs could not hold up and began to sway.
Escalator tips over and narrowly misses the ground staff
While one employee quickly fled, the other two remained standing at the escalator.
One of them escaped the tipping escalator with a side step, the other probably only had luck to thank for not being hit by it.
He hadn't noticed that the escalator was falling in his direction after he turned his back on it.
“This is how powerful airplane turbines can be,” commented the videographer on X, for anyone who missed the context.
One user particularly expressed relief that none of the employees were injured in the incident.
In fact, everyone escaped in horror.
Like in the fall of 2023, when a plane at the New York airport tipped backwards at the gate.
What was terrible, however, were the seven hours that passengers had to spend on the tarmac in the extreme heat.
The editor wrote this article and then used an AI language model for optimization at his own discretion. All information has been carefully checked.
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