The family of a cargo handler who fell to his death from an aircraft at Dublin Airport over six years ago have expressed outrage at details of the circumstances of his death revealed at an inquest.
Richard Gracey (64) a father of five from Balbriggan, Co Dublin fell headfirst to the ground from a height of five metres while unloading cargo from an Air France aircraft on the morning of November 24, 2018.
Mr Gracey, a native of Andersonstown, Belfast who had worked as a cargo handler with Swissport Ireland since April 2005, was rushed by ambulance to Beaumont Hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival. A postmortem showed he suffered a fractured skull and died as a result of severe brain injuries consistent with a fall from a height.
In a statement following the hearing, the Gracey family said they were “outraged” over the failures "in maintaining and upholding a safe work environment". They claimed they as well his work colleagues had to endure a traumatic and devastating six and a half years “with no knowledge or closure.”
A verdict of a workplace-related fatality was returned by a jury of eight women and one man at an inquest into the death of Mr Gracey at Dublin District Coroner’s Court on Tuesday. The jury also acknowledged and expressed satisfaction with changes made to operating procedures by Swissport since the fatal incident but recommended safety training for staff should be offered on a more frequent basis.
The inquest heard evidence from several other Swissport workers who were helping to unload the Boeing 777 aircraft which had arrived on a flight from Chicago at around 10.15am. The driver of a loader, Alan Menton, outlined how he was waiting to manoeuvre his vehicle into place when Mr Gracey appeared to fall over the top part of a safety net and made a grab for it before falling forward onto the ground.
Another colleague, Cian O’Neill, said he saw Mr Gracey with one hand on the safety net and bending down just before he fell out through the cargo door.
An inspector with the Health and Safety Authority, Brian Morris, gave evidence that an investigation had found that Swissport’s standard operating procedures had not been followed correctly on the day. Mr Morris explained that the sills on the cargo door had been deployed from inside the aircraft before a loader had been manoeuvred into its final position for unloading the cargo, which was not in accordance with proper procedures.
The inquest heard the final position of the loader should only leave a safety gap of 8-10cm at a maximum between the vehicle and the aircraft before the sills were deployed. However, Mr Morris said there was a gap of 2.7 metres between them at the time of the fatal incident.
Questioned by counsel for the deceased’s family, Anthony Walker SC, Mr Morris said the HSA investigation had found that the risk of someone falling from the cargo door would have been reduced if the loader had been in its proper position.
Mr Morris agreed that a safety net across the cargo door was not designed to stop a human physically falling through it. He said the use of a harness by workers unloading cargo from an aircraft was “a non-industry standard.”
In March 2023, Swissport Ireland was convicted and fined €250,000 at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court over the circumstances of Mr Gracey’s death for breaches of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005. The company pleaded guilty to two charges including failing to provide adequate fall prevention measures in relation to the off-loading of the cargo plane.
In a victim impact statement, Mr Gracey’s wife, Therese, told the court that her husband had often come home from work describing his workplace situation as “accidents waiting to happen.”
The family’s solicitor, Dermot McNamara, confirmed that they also subsequently reached an undisclosed settlement with Swissport Ireland, Boeing and Air France in related civil proceedings in the High Court.
A consultant engineer who assisted the HSA investigation, Damien Power, said he had identified two defects with the aircraft near the vicinity of the fatal incident which were possible contributory factors. Mr Power said a broken pin had resulted in a “guide shoe” popping out on the floor of the sill which could create a trip hazard.
The witness also found that one of the four anchor points for the 1.2-metre-high safety net placed across the cargo door, while not defective, created the impression of being properly deployed when it could be released if some force had been applied to it. The safety net, whose function is to act as a “warning strap,” had been put in place by ground handlers at O’Hare Airport in Chicago.
In reply to a suggestion by Mr Walker that the safety net was not capable of stopping someone from falling from the aircraft, Mr Power he had carried out tests which showed it could hold a weight of 107 kg.
Counsel for Swissport, Alison Foynes BL, pointed out that the loader was not linked to the cause of death and a nolle prosequi had been entered about it in the related criminal proceedings. The inquest heard that the width of the loader did not match the width of the aircraft’s cargo door and created a gap at one side of the opening.
Under cross-examination by Ms Fynes BL, however, Mr Power accepted that the width of the loader was not a factor in the fatal incident.
A senior representative of Swissport, Sinead Kelly, told the inquest that the company had a robust safety management system in place. Ms Kelly said its procedures had been changed since Mr Gracey’s death so that sills of cargo doors should now only be opened from outside an aircraft by the operator of a loader.
She also pointed out that there had been no “near miss” safety incidents of a similar nature in over 500,000 ground operations since January 2022.
At the opening of the inquest Ms Gracey, who formally identified her husband’s body to gardai, told the hearing that he had not been due to work that day. Ms Gracey said she had last seen her husband on the night before his death when he had been in good form.
Following the inquest, she said she did not believe the fine imposed by the court on Swissport reflected the seriousness of the company’s failures to provide a safe work environment.
Ms Gracey said her family were determined to ensure her husband’s death ultimately led to changes to prevent a similar event again but her family were “disappointed” that neither the coroner, Clare Keane, nor the jury had recommended that Boeing should introduce a safety net across all its cargo aircraft.
A Swissport spokesperson said the company hoped the proceedings had brought some level of closure for Mr Gracey’s family. The spokesperson said ensuring the health and safety of its employees and aviation customers was its “utmost priority” and it worked continuously to improve its operating procedures.
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