OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #893891
UNITED AIRLINES
CHANTILLY, VA·
Event description
Employee killed when crushed by airport mobile lounge
Investigation abstract
At approximately 7:15 a.m. on March 21, 1989, Employee #1 was using a cargo trac toward gate D3. The cargo tractor struck the right rear wheel of the mobile loun ge and overturned. Employee #1 was ejected from the cargo tractor and struck by the mobile lounge. He died instantly due to severe crushing injuries. A witness stated that the employee appeared to be looking back over his left shoulder and did not see the mobile lounge before the collision. Causal factors related to th is accident appear to have been Employee #1's failure to look where he was going and his subsequent failure to yield the right-of-way to a higher priority vehic le. tor to go from midfield terminal gate D3 to gate C22 to get rainpants. It was ra ining steadily as he traveled east just south of the A0A vehicle traffic lanes. At the same time, a Plane Mate mobile lounge #650 Texas was traveling east on ta xiway R-1 with a load of passengers destined for gate D3. Taxiway R-1 and the A0 A vehicle traffic lanes run parallel with the A0A vehicle traffic lanes adjacent to and south of taxiway R-1. Airport right-of-way regulations give priority to aircraft mobile lounges over cargo tractors. The mobile lounge continued southea st across the vehicle traffic lanes and then turned right, proceeding southwest
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 23 Male
- Nature of injury
- Fracture (12)
- Part of body
- MULTIPLE (19)
- Accident type
- STRUCK BY (1)
- Source of injury
- MOTOR VEHICLE(INDUS) (30)
- Occupation
- Personal service occupations, n.e.c. (469)
- Human factor
- MISJUDGMENT, HAZ. SITUATION (1)
- Environmental factor
- OTHER (18)
- Task assigned
- Task regularly assigned (1)
Labels are OSHA's own, from the code dictionary published with the accident-investigation file. The raw code is shown beside each one so this page can be reconciled against OSHA's bulk data. OSHA notes that nature of injury, part of body, source of injury and accident type in this file are not coded to the Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System, and that the occupation titles are not standardised — so these values are not directly comparable with the OIICS-coded severe injury reports.