It will certainly come as no surprise to readers of this blog that government agencies do not give ramp areas the same level of attention to safety they give to airline operations, maintenance or other areas of an airport, such as runways and taxiways. Some may be happy to leave the Federal Aviation Administration or National Transportation Safety Board out of their ramp business and do not want a safety spotlight shined on ramp activities. I know I might have felt that way myself when I ran my FBO. But my years on the NTSB convinced me that this lack of official attention can also foster a lack of respect for the critical safety impact of ramp functions. In addition, ramp incidents and accidents are very costly and analysis of incident...

There’s not going to be a duty time rule for ramp workers any time soon. Pilot flight and duty time rules took three years from the crash of Colgan in Buffalo in February of 2009 to finally get promulgated – and fatigue may well have played a role in the errors by the crew that fateful night. Duty time rules for mechanics have stalled completely. So, in the aviation scheme of things ramp operations are unfortunately on the bottom of the aviation safety totem pole. And I do mean “unfortunately.” Ramp operations can have a direct impact on safety and fatigue in ramp workers can cause human errors just as fatigue in the cockpit or on the hangar floor can. More and more, however, the issue of human factors is focused on fatigue...