An airport ground worker at Montreal-Trudeau International Airport (YUL) has been critically injured after being run down by a Frenchbee Airbus A350 widebody aircraft as it was being pushed back from its parking stand in preparation for departure.
Early reports suggest the injured employee was a so-called ‘wing walker’ who tripped and fell in front of the aircraft and was then run over by the front landing gear of the huge aircraft, which can weigh as much as 145 tons before accounting for fuel, passengers, and cargo.
The incident involved a seven-year-old Airbus A350-900 aircraft which was due to depart Montreal at around 6 pm on August 24. The flight was operating as a ‘ferry service‘ after the plane became stranded in Montreal over the weekend due to a technical issue.
The plane ended up pushing back later than planned at around 7:00 pm, and just a short time later, a full emergency response was activated at the airport. Local officials have confirmed that the airport employee was rushed to the local hospital in critical condition.
The aircraft remains on the ground at Montreal-Trudeau while Frenchbee’s regularly scheduled service to Paris Orly departed as normal on Monday evening at around 11 pm.
The Transportation Safety Bureau of Canada has been informed and will be investigating the circumstances of the accident.
French Bee started operations in 2016 as the first low-cost, long-haul airline in France. Owned by the Dubreuil Group (which also owns Air Caraïbes), the carrier was originally called French Blue but had to change its name when jetBlue raised objections to another airline with the word ‘blue’ in its name entering the U.S. market.
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