Incident Overview
Description
After the aircraft had come to a standstill on the apron, the ramp agent positioned the chocks on the nose landing gear and then on the main left landing gear after engine shutdown and informed the crew of these actions via the ground interphone connection. The crew informed him that the parking brake was released. Theÿramp agent checked that the aircraft was stabilized, reported this to the crew and authorized the ground support equipment to be brought forward and the docking of the jetways. He went to the Ground Power Unit (GPU) whose engine was already in operation, picked up the connecting cable and got ready to connect the ground power connector to the aircraft. As the cable was tangled up, he was not able to do this and asked a ground attendant to untangle it. He then connected the ground power connector to the aircraft. At this moment, witnesses heard an explosion, the ground attendant saw an electric arc of around 30 cm at the connector and the ramp agent was thrown to the ground. The connector stayed connected to the aircraft. The ramp agent was quickly cared for by the emergency services. The diesel engine of the ground power unit was shutdown.
Primary Cause
Cable entanglement during electrical connection.Cable entanglement during electrical connection.Share on:
