Sleeping airport worker had lucky escape after passenger heard banging from aircraft hold, unfair dismissal case hears

An airport worker who slipped into an aircraft hold for a sleep could have died after he was mistakenly locked in by a colleague shortly before the aircraft was due to take off, the Workplace Relations Commission has heard.

However, the worker had a lucky escape after a passenger onboard heard loud banging and shouting coming from the man in the locked hold.

A loading supervisor had signed off that the hold was empty without properly checking and he was sacked for gross misconduct as a result by his employer, a service provider.

The supervisor sued for unfair dismissal arising from the incident on October 5, 2016, at an unnamed Irish airport.

However, Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) Adjudication Officer, Brian Dalton has thrown out the supervisor’s unfair dismissal claim after finding that a reasonable employer could dismiss an employee for such a serious breach.

In his findings, Mr Dalton said: “Unless a passenger had heard the loud banging and shouts of that employee, a fatality could have occurred.”

“This was a serious incident. The supervisor had a duty to check the hold. His failure to adequately and thoroughly complete that check was a very serious omission.

The holds were locked, and an employee trapped in the forward hold. The signing of the loading instructions document by the claimant stating that the forward hold was empty was clearly not the case.

“This omission was a serious breach of policy and clearly gave rise to a serious safety incident. On balance, a reasonable employer would class this omission as gross misconduct.”

The service provider told the WRC hearing that if the passenger had not heard the worker’s banging and shouting, “the employee who had slipped into the hold to sleep could have died if the oxygen in that hold had been turned off”.

The employer said: “The forward hold where the employee had slipped in to sleep is small and about six feet wide.

“The loading supervisor is responsible for signing off for the unloading and the loading of the aircraft. A thorough check would have clearly shown that an employee was asleep in the forward hold."

The employer told the WRC hearing that “the supervisor had not thoroughly checked the forward hold to ensure that it was empty as per the Loading Instructions”.

The employer said: “He signed the Loading Instructions document to the effect that it was empty as per the instructions."

This failure and omission to carry out the most important check created a very serious safety incident.

The employer argued that checking the hold “is a fundamental safety and security requirement that goes to the heart of passenger safety and security”.

The employer argued that the complainant was found to have breached several key and crucial duties that underpin safety and security.

The company said that it had followed fair procedures in the disciplinary process; impartially investigated the incident and found the claimant’s omissions and failures amounted to gross misconduct.

As part of his unfair dismissal claim, the loading supervisor accepted that the incident was serious.

However, the supervisor claimed that the company refused to take account of mitigating circumstances concerning the actions of the other employee who caused the incident.

The supervisor claimed that management had failed to move that employee away from active loading when earlier he was found sleeping in a loading truck.

The supervisor said that he did check the hold and he states that he saw no one in the hold. He said that he was later shocked to discover there was a man in the hold.

The man argued that if he had made mistakes, “there were also checks and balances in the operating procedures that contributed to this serious incident such as the lack of a safety briefing at the beginning of the shift and crew members not being clearly identified to him who were assigned to the unloading and loading of the aircraft”.

He argued: “In those circumstances a final written warning and retraining would have been a more just decision.”