An Alabama airport reopened a few hours after an American Airlines ground crew worker was killed in a freak accident there on Saturday.
A baggage handler identified as Courtney Edwards, 34, at the Montgomery Regional Airport in Central Alabama, died after she was tragically sucked into a plane’s engine. Operations in the airport stopped for several hours as the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration investigated the incident.
While the details of the accident are few, the Montgomery Regional Airport management confirmed that a ground crew employee working for Piedmont Airlines, an American Airlines subsidiary, was killed after an “industrial accident.”
Edwards died after an engine of an American Airlines aircraft sucked her in. Piedmont Airlines released a statement confirming the tragic death of one of their employees and consoling the victim’s family and friends.
The tragedy happened at around 3 pm local time on New Year’s Eve while flight AA3408 departing from Montgomery and heading to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport was waiting at the gate. The plane was supposed to depart the airport at 3:46 pm.
The flight got canceled after the tragedy, and the airport shut down for several hours. It reopened at around 8:30 pm on Saturday.
Many travelers had to rebook their flights due to cancellations and delays.
Although it is unknown whose fault it was, Reuters claimed that two sources told them the employee died after an incident involving an airplane engine that was running.
The aircraft that was involved in the accident, was a four-year-old Envoy Air Embraer twin jet.
American Airlines, which owns both Piedmont Airlines and Envoy Air, released a statement about the incident, saying that they were devastated by the accident that claimed the life of a team member. They consoled the family and friends, adding that they would ensure everyone involved would get the support they needed.
Ground accidents are not an uncommon occurrence. In August, Simple Flying reported that a Russian Airport worker had died after getting hit by a propeller of an aircraft operated by UTair.
Also, in August, a baggage handler working at a New Orleans airport died while unloading baggage after her hair got stuck in the belt loader of a Frontier Airlines flight.