‘Accident waiting to happen’: After death, airport workers want safety improvements

Employees at Charlotte Douglas International Airport have asked the city for safety improvements in the same concourse where a worker was killed last month.

Donielle Prophete, vice president for CWA Local 3645, which represents 1,700 Piedmont Airlines agents, asked City Council on Monday for airport lighting and other safety upgrades after the nighttime death of 24-year-old employee Kendrick Hudson last month.

Prophete said visibility is especially poor near gates E30-38.

“It’s so bad around those gates that the agents call it ‘Death Valley,’” she said. “We don’t know if lighting contributed to Kendrick’s death or not, but we want to be proactive in our own safety when working on E Concourse because we feel it’s an accident waiting to happen.”

Hudson was transporting baggage on an airport vehicle called a tug near E Concourse, police have said, when he made a hard turn to avoid a piece of luggage and the vehicle rolled over and pinned him.

State and federal officials are investigating the death.

Officials in Charlotte are expanding an existing airport lighting analysis at the request of American Airlines, the city’s aviation director said. Brent Cagle said the study, which already includes the C and D concourses, will also now include parts of E.

Piedmont Airlines is a subsidiary of American.

Prophete also said temperatures in that concourse’s jet bridges and the airport’s new $11 million baggage transfer area have been dangerously high, causing several employees to seek treatment for heat exhaustion and dehydration. There are not enough electrical outlets for more fans, she said, and using an extension cord would violate workplace safety laws.

Mayor Vi Lyles said it is often difficult to determine what is the city’s responsibility as the airport’s owner, and what falls to airlines.

“I certainly think this is something we ought to take up with the airlines,” she said.

Cagle, the aviation director, said the city was aware of and already working on some of Prophete’s concerns and would look into the new issues.

Only a small percentage of accidents on the ground at airports are reported, said David Williams, a professor at Emory-Riddle Aeronautical University specializing in occupational safety. Companies are required to report accidents involving amputation, loss of an eye, injury requiring hospitalization or death.

Baggage tugs have a high center of gravity and can be prone to flipping on sharp turns, Williams told the Observer in an August interview. It worries Williams that the luggage Hudson turned to avoid wasn’t more visible.

“What I don’t understand is how do you not see a bag until you’re almost on it,” Williams told the Observer in August. “… There’s nothing on the ground out there.”

Williams said Tuesday that safety concerns should have been addressed before any injuries occurred.

“The time to do the study was prior to the accident,” William said. “… I think it was simply an issue that was overlooked. Ultimately, as in many cases in aviation, we have to spill blood before we start looking at things with a critical eye.”

Hudson was the first employee to die at the Charlotte airport in more than a decade. The last death was in 2006 at Wilson Air Center, the airport’s fixed-based operator, airport spokeswoman Lee Davis said.

Wilson Air Center provides fueling, catering and aircraft maintenance services for private and corporate planes and travelers.

A woman’s body was found under a car before 3 a.m. inside Wilson Air Center, WIS News and AP News reported in 2006.

Baggage tug accidents have proven deadly at other airports. A baggage tug operator in Atlanta with Delta Air Lines was killed in 2010 after the employee was ejected from the vehicle. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Delta for violating a federal requirement for employers to protect employees, in this case, by providing seat belts, according to OSHA.

American Airlines spokeswoman Crystal Byrd previously told the Observer all American Airlines and affiliate airlines baggage tugs have seat belts.

Cagle, the aviation director, also confirmed Monday that airport employees will no longer be able to use tobacco on site beginning in November.

The announcement came after another airport employee spoke at Monday’s council meeting to complain about smoking near the baggage claim area. Passengers will still be able to smoke in designated areas, Cagle said, because the airport was exempt in the county’s ordinance banning tobacco use on public property.

County health officials will provide tobacco cessation resources to employees, Cagle said.

This work was made possible in part by grant funding from Report for America/GroundTruth Project and the Foundation For The Carolinas.

This story was originally published September 24, 2019 at 12:11 PM.