2 men run over in accidents at Denver International Airport; security director “alarmed”

Denver International Airport’s chief security officer expressed “alarm” over two separate incidents at the airport that occurred nine months apart.

In both incidents, a man was hit by trucks while doing his work on the ground at the airport.

“I don’t think we would expect anything like this,” Travis Krabbenhoft, DIA’s director of airport security, told CBS News Colorado. “The airport continues to grow. We’re seeing more and more traffic out there as we have more and more flights.”

The most recent incident occurred on May 20, when a Southwest Airlines “wing walker” ordered a plane to back out. “Wing walkers” are the ground crew who guide planes onto the runway and manage ground traffic at airports.

Airport video from 9:30 p.m. that same evening shows the Southwest employee attempting to bring traffic to a stop on an airport road when the driver of a Southwest truck collides with the Wingwalker.

“It’s a terrible accident,” said Krabbenhoft. “Surely things could have been done differently.”

The wingwalker was taken to the university hospital. The driver was accused of three violations and, according to Krabbenhoft, his license to drive on the airfield was revoked “due to improper driving.”

According to a Denver Police report, the Southwest driver said he “did not see the wingwalker.”

“Our teams have investigated the incident and are handling it internally,” said Chris Perry, a spokesman for Southwest Airlines. “We have nothing further to share.”

CBS News Colorado learned of a more serious airfield accident nine months earlier, on August 21, 2023.

In that early morning incident, an employee of subcontractor Millstone Weber was driving a water truck as part of concrete work near Runway 17L-35R when he struck a Sturgeon Electric employee working on the project, an airport report said. Neither Millstone Weber nor Sturgeon Electric responded to messages from CBS News Colorado seeking comment.

The Sturgeon employee was seriously injured and taken to hospital.

According to the airport’s investigation into the incident, the driver of the Millstone Weber water truck may have been overtired because he had been working “extended shifts,” which violated the company’s “fatigue management plan.”

According to the investigation, the driver was allowed to work up to 14 hours a day during a six-day work week. However, records show he worked up to 17.5 hours a day; “a violation of Millstone Weber’s Fatigue Management Plan,” according to the post-accident investigation. The same records show the driver worked 71 hours a week in the week before the accident and 74 hours a week for two weeks in July.

Krabbenhoft said: “This system has failed and we must do something to ensure that it does not continue in the future.”

The airport’s investigation revealed that the water truck driver had exceeded the permitted working hours in five of the eight weeks prior to the accident.

Krabbenhoft declined to comment on whether and, if so, penalties would be imposed on the contracting company, citing likely legal disputes.

He said it is difficult to compare the DIA airfield’s safety record with other airports because there is currently no central national database of such incidents. He said the DIA typically expects one or two such accidents per year. He added that everyone who drives at the airfield undergoes driver training that goes beyond FAA requirements.