ATLANTA, Ga. — A tire explosion at Atlanta’s airport Tuesday morning sent metal flying through the air like a missile, killing two workers and seriously injuring a third.
Channel 2′s Tom Jones was at a Delta maintenance facility Tuesday afternoon, where the accident happened as employees worked on a wheel mechanism.
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The men who were killed were identified as Mirko Marweg, 58, of Stone Mountain and Luis Aldarondo, 37, of Newnan. The victim who was injured has not been identified.
People Jones spoke to said the tire was not mounted on an aircraft but was being prepared for transport. As workers began unloading the tire, it exploded, sending a metal piece flying through the shop and hitting the workers with lethal force.
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Channel 2 Action News obtained an incident report, in which a worker describes hearing an explosion and then seeing co-workers running to get help.
“I walked toward where the explosion occurred and saw a body lying face down, not moving, with blood all around,” the employee said.
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Charlie Hines from the International Machinists and Aerospace Workers said that working around commercial aircraft is extremely dangerous.
“That’s just tragic and heartbreaking, every day, that we get up and go in there we realize that we may not come home,” Hines said.
The incident has highlighted the inherent dangers of working around commercial aircraft equipment, including tires and engines.
“It’s just a lot of equipment out there that requires a lot of safety,” Hines said
National Aviation Analyst John Nance said airplane tires and components don’t usually explode, so the question now is about the PSI, or the amount of pressure in the tire wheel during the wheel assembly.
He said investigators will look to see if there was a defect in the wheel itself. Nance said aviation mechanics are highly trained to handle a lot of different scenarios.
“Mechanics deal with many different parts on an airplane and they’ve got manuals for everything, so if something went wrong here is was this tire or wheel assembly being serviced in a normal fashion or did something get missed on the check list?” Nances said.
Delta has communicated its full support to the families of the victims. They are conducting a thorough investigation to understand what led to the explosion.
OSHA is also investigating.
“Safety is one of the most critical and most important things. When you have a dangerous job like we do on the ramp,” Hines said.
The International Machinists and Aerospace Workers Union, which represents over 100,000 machinists in the airline industry, will be sending Employee Assistance Program (EAP) members to support those affected by the incident. Delta is also offering similar resources to its employees.
A collective emphasis from the union and Delta underscores the need for robust safety measures to ensure the welfare of all workers in such hazardous environments.
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