US air force finds contractor who walked into propeller had become disorientated

Stephanie Cosme, 32, was killed last year when she inadvertently walked into the rotating propeller of an aircraft in California

A US air force civilian contractor had become disoriented recording data at an airport in California last year when she walked into a jet’s rotating propeller and was killed, officials said on Friday.

In a statement outlining the findings of a report into the contractor’s death, the air force materiel command said that 32-year-old Stephanie Cosme was mortally injured on 7 September when she inadvertently walked into the rotating propeller of an MQ-9A that was parked at Gray Butte airfield.

MyNamesNotRobert, (edited )

I hope she at least died immediately, that sounds like a terrible way to go.

SkyezOpen,

That’s a reaper drone. The bottom of the prop is about 4 or 5 feet off the ground. I’m confident it was quick, morbid as that sounds.

deranger,

“Disorientated” gets me. Why not save a few letters and use “disoriented”? You don’t orientate yourself to your environment, you orient yourself.

Num10ck,

Disoriented is the US version; disorientated is the British version.

Dozzi92,

Never thought about that. People frequently say orientate at my work (I am a stenographer) and it bothers me to no end, because it takes me longer to write orientate versus orient. But now it makes sense, British language.

NoIWontPickAName,

Yeah, that’s why we call them Orientals!

FunkPhenomenon,

I bet everyone that witnessed her brief propeller interaction was disorientated

AA5B,

For me, it was the article describing walking into the propeller of a jet. Clearly someone didn’t read this over before clicking submit

shottymcb,

It’s a turboprop plane, so a jet engine driving a propeller. Definitely sounds weird when phrased like that though.

captain_aggravated,

It’s like how for awhile there you would hear the phrase “jet helicopter.” Meaning a helicopter powered by a turboshaft engine, like the Huey. You don’t hear that very often these days because there’s virtually no helicopters in significant service with reciprocating engines that aren’t made by Robinson.

seth,

That sounds like a terrible way to go, and utterly horrifying for the people who had to witness it, and those who had to collect and clean up her remains.

hemko,

Tbf, she probably died very quickly. Now the mess after her is going to be nasty. And everywhere

Num10ck,

mistifying.

NoIWontPickAName,

You’re going to hell for that and I’m going to hell for laughing at it

Krauerking,

the air force materiel command accident investigation board said it found two causes for the incident.

“First,” the board said, “the test engineer was incorrectly instructed or trained on how to take telemetry readings when approaching the MQ-9A while the engine was running. Second, she lost situational awareness while walking around the mishap aircraft taking telemetry readings with a hand-held measurement device.”

Yeah, no one warned her how deadly this was and not thinking about she walked right into that propeller looking down. Not sure that relieves them or fault but definitely an accurate assessment of what happened

catloaf,

There’s fault on both sides. The Air Force for not training her properly, and her for walking around operating equipment without paying attention to things that’ll kill you.

Legally, though, the Air Force is probably going to pay out for her death.

turmacar,

The military is a lot more tolerant about working around running aircraft than civilians. Nominally there’s a lot more training/drilling/etc to keep situational awareness up… But also occasionally someone walks into a prop or gets sucked into a jet.

I’m sure this’ll spawn a new series of briefings.

Not sure how it’ll work with any payouts since she was a contractor. In general you’re being paid more at the cost of less of the compensation packages that service members get.

EmpathicVagrant,

Why was a civilian allowed to record around active jets and expected to safely lead themselves? Pokémon go had to warn people not to walk off cliffs and into traffic, but the Air Force is accessory to this without having someone to watch her movements and nothing?

Fal,

There are all kinds of civilians working for the military. This isn’t some active war zone where she stepped on a land mine. Every civilian doing work on an airport tar mac doesn’t require a military member holding their hand to tell them not to walk into spinning proppellers. Blaming this on the military vs just an unfortunate accident is just ridiculous

Empricorn,

I don’t think anyone’s claiming it was during the chaos of wartime, but it was an active airfield. So yes, it’s their responsibility to limit access, keep track of everyone, and keep both pedestrians and vehicles/aircraft safe.

Cyyris,

I guarantee she had access lol. Getting access to a flight line is not as difficult as you’re making it out to be.

If her job duties included…you know, being on the flight line (as it sounds like her contract absolutely was,) all she had to do was get the SMO to verify her clearance, verify her job duties, assign her a RAB, and she’s good to go. Guaranteed she had all of the correct clearances and authorizations.

If you’ve got access to the area, nobody is going to follow you around and “keep track of everyone.”

I know this because I had all of this access as a civilian contractor when working on a military installation.

bhmnscmm,

Her job was to be on active tarmac near running aircraft. She isn’t some random person that shouldn’t have been there.

It appears she wasn’t paying attention and people tried to stop her from walking into the propeller.

“Others began shouting and waving to get [Cosme’s] attention as well,” the report said. It added: “Without looking up to determine her position relative to the aircraft, [Cosme] proceeded to walk directly into the propeller … sustaining fatal injuries.”

tal,

Why was a civilian allowed to record around active jets and expected to safely lead themselves?

I mean, I walk on a sidewalk right next to traffic. I’ve worked with power tools. People work around heavy machinery.

We come in close proximity to things that have enough energy to kill us on a not-irregular basis.

TyrionsNose,

I think people underestimate how many civilians work alongside our men and women in uniform. Walk out to any hangar on a base in the US and it will be close to half and half. If it’s test facility it may be more civilians.

EmpathicVagrant,

Cars are machinery the public is integrated with and understands the dangers of - she can’t be expected to navigate distracted as though she’s trained to be around active jets. It is not the same thing at all as being near the street.

catloaf,

That’s her job, so yes, she is expected to work around active jets.

But it sounds like this was at least partially due to a failure in training.

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