What about ground safety?

In a freak accident early on Thursday, a JetLite ground engineer who had gone to the tarmac to perform checks on an aircraft ended up ramming his vehicle into the plane, causing minor damage to the nose wheel.

The incident came in the midst of Air Safety Week, which began on Monday and ends on Saturday.

The plane, a Boeing 737, had arrived on Wednesday from Coimbatore as flight S2 646 at 11:45pm and was parked at bay number 6 of Mumbai airport. About 45 minutes later, the engineer went to the bay for a routine inspection. Parking the jeep near the aircraft’s nose wheel, the engineer alighted to conduct the check.

The accident happened when the engineer, who had left the key in the ignition, returned to the jeep to retrieve it. The vehicle was in gear and in trying to remove the key he accidentally switched the ignition on.

The vehicle lurched ahead and bumped into the nose wheel. Gary Kingshot, spokesperson for JetLite, confirmed the incident but said the damage was minor and the aircraft is in operation. “An internal investigation is underway,” he said.