As passenger count increases, so do safety concerns at Austin's airport

AUSTIN (KXAN) – After more than 30 years as a fire chief and firefighter, Mike Wills was loving the second act of his career: working at Austin’s airport overseeing safety on the tarmac, his daughter Jillian Wills said.

“Every day, when he would come in on the radios, he'd be like, ‘It's a great day in aviation. It's a beautiful sunrise,’” Jillian recounted.

So, given her dad’s current position after a lifetime of work in dangerous jobs, the news Jillian received on Halloween day 2023 came as a shock. A fuel truck struck her dad at work on the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport tarmac. Despite lifesaving efforts by paramedics, he died on the pavement within an hour, according to incident reports and court records.

Jillian, who lives in California, later learned her dad’s death that morning was the second fatal incident that year in that area of the airport, which is more accurately called the apron. It’s a unique zone between the terminals and runway where planes, trucks, jet bridges and people all mix. Six months earlier, an American Airlines employee died after a roofless tug vehicle he was driving collided with a jet bridge.

A KXAN investigation of those incidents and airport safety – including a review of internal Aviation Department emails, airport safety violation data, court records and more – sheds light on understaffing at the airport and the challenges workers face in enforcing the rules.

A point of friction for the airside operations division – the team that oversees safety on the apron – has been balancing rule enforcement with the airport’s desire to maintain collaborative relationships with airlines that pay to use the facility and contractors that help keep the entire enterprise running, according to employee interviews and records obtained by KXAN.

An airport spokesperson said issuing penalties against those "partners" could cause contractors to be fired, thus leading to vacancies that could exacerbate low staffing.

The two deaths prompted multiple city employees to send tips to KXAN with concerns about airport safety, particularly on the apron. KXAN interviewed one former airport employee with knowledge of the airside operations team, who spoke with KXAN on a condition of anonymity. KXAN verified the employee’s employment credentials.

From the former employee’s perspective, the airport has taken too light a hand in rule enforcement, preferring instead to keep airlines satisfied. That stance has created a lack of safety culture and dangerous conditions, evidenced by two fatalities in one year, the employee said.

Scale of enforcement

“Little to no time is spent during the day on — on safety, and it's not because people don't care about it. It's because people just don't have time, with the responsibilities that that group is given,” the airport employee told KXAN, referencing the airside operations group. “It's clear that the airlines' operation and their schedule comes before your enforcement of safety or anyone's enforcement of safety.”

Aviation spokesperson Sam Haynes pushed back on that assertion. The Aviation Department takes safety seriously, she said, and it has taken several steps in recent months and years to fill vacancies, improve safety and plan for the implementation of a “safety management system,” or SMS, which is an overarching framework for safety recently required by the Federal Aviation Administration to be put in place in the coming years.

“Striking a balance in anything is challenging, but let me be clear that safety above anything else is the Department of Aviation's number one priority,” Haynes told KXAN. “Not just safety for the customer and passengers, but safety for all employees that operate here out on the ramp.”

Haynes said the two deaths were anomalies. The "ramp" she referred to is another name for the apron area of the tarmac.

“We have made changes to safety and have met a lot of milestones in improving safety here at the airport,” Haynes said. “I want to be clear that these safety changes were work that was occurring prior to these tragic deaths and are not a result of the two isolated and highly, highly irregular incidents.”

As part of KXAN's investigation into those deaths, we requested internal emails sent between Aviation Department employees. Some of those emails show disagreement within the airside operations team about how they should wield enforcement tools like “notices of violation,” which are like tickets, against contractors.

‘Hands off approach’

The internal emails were exchanged between airside operations members in March 2024.

In one email, an airside operations manager acknowledges there has been guidance from his superiors to not be too heavy-handed with issuing violations.

The manager wrote that he thought it was “unfortunate that most specialists take a hands-off approach of enforcing" rules on the apron area.

In response, an airside operations specialist – which is the same position Wills once held – said “previous events” like speeding and inattentive driving were a “proven” safety risk.

“It's my opinion that the failure to provide resources (including adequate personnel and equipment) to address these clearly identified and quantifiable safety risks is a responsibility that falls squarely on airport management,” the specialist wrote.

The specialist said issuing "notices of violation," or NOVs in airport jargon, was a primary way to keep order on the apron. However, the "overall culture in the group has been to not issue (NOVs).”

KXAN obtained NOV data from the airport showing Aviation Department officials issued approximately 90 notices of violation against workers for airlines and contractors from April 2020 through April 2024. Those notices include six against Menzies Aviation, the company that operated the fuel truck that hit Wills last year, according to city records. Many other major companies and airlines received a similar number of penalties in that timeframe, according to Austin's data.

Explanations of the violations show a variety of safety issues on the apron: drivers speeding and using cell phones, "reckless driving" under a jet bridge and inoperable equipment left out for weeks.

Haynes said the city is using alternative methods, not just NOVs, to police safety. NOVs are not always the airport's "go to" method to push for behavior changes, she said, and team members use verbal warnings as a less severe enforcement tactic.

“What we're trying to do is really take an active collaborative approach in developing a safety culture with our airline partners," Haynes said.

KXAN has also requested verbal warning data, and that request remains pending.

“It's not effective to go out and yield a heavy fist on the air side and issue NOVs to every driver that is doing something incorrectly,” Haynes told KXAN.

A specialist could revoke a person’s “ramp license,” which would bar them from driving on the apron. But NOVs and pulling licenses can cause contractors to lose their jobs, which, in turn, can lead to an empty post, Haynes said.

“We don't want to set up our partners to have to fill more vacant positions because they've lost employees due to NOV issuance,” Haynes said.

The safety concerns weren’t only contained in the notices of violation. In September 2022, a commercial pilot at AUS filed a safety concern in the federal Aviation Safety Reporting System, or ASRA, the largest confidential safety reporting system for pilots and frontline airline personnel in the country.

In that 2022 ASRA report, the pilot complained about a lack of direction on Austin’s apron for airplanes.

“(Apron) edges are lined with equipment and are a possible hazard for getting blown when aircraft must engine park there,” the pilot reported, meaning equipment could be pushed around by the airflow behind a plane's engine.

It is not clear which company’s equipment was causing the issue noted by the pilot. Data from that time shows notices of violations against a variety of companies, from ground handlers to various airlines and others.

‘Gross negligence’

In December 2023, Jillian and other family members sued Menzies in Travis County District Court. The lawsuit and first-responder records provide the sequence of events that led to Wills’ death.

The Menzies driver was parked in an unauthorized area while waiting to refuel a plane, the suit states. Wills drove up in his city pickup, parked next to the fuel tanker, approached the driver-side window and instructed the driver to move. While Wills was still between the fuel truck and his own pickup, the fuel truck driver pulled forward and turned, fatally pinning Wills between the two vehicles, according to the suit, police records and video obtained by KXAN.

The Menzies driver acted with “gross negligence and reckless disregard for the safety of others,” the lawsuit states.

In a brief statement to KXAN, a Menzies spokesperson said the company could not provide further comment because of the ongoing legal case.

“Menzies Aviation operates in more than 65 countries around the world and safety is our No. 1 priority every day and in every location we operate,” the spokesperson added.

In its answer to the Wills family lawsuit, Menzies issued a general denial of the allegation against it. The case should be dismissed, the company said, and the damages sought by the plaintiffs were “speculative, vague, and/or uncertain and are therefore not compensable.”

The Menzies answer also puts the blame for Wills' death back on him.

“The injuries and/or damages of which Plaintiffs complain were proximately caused or contributed to, in whole or in part, by negligence, carelessness, or recklessness attributable to (Wills), including but not limited to failure to exercise ordinary care on his own behalf,” Menzies states in its answer.

Jillian Wills’ attorney, Brad Beckworth with the firm Nix Patterson, rebutted that.

“One, that's what defendants always say. Two, there's no evidence of it,” Beckworth said. “Mr. Wills was doing his job, and anyone out there who knows what actually happened will tell you he did exactly what he was supposed to do.”

In the wrongful death lawsuit, the Wills family is seeking damages amounting to more than $1 million, according to court records. The case remains pending.

The family of Michael Ingraham has also filed a lawsuit following his death in April 2023. Ingraham, an American Airlines ground worker, struck a jet bridge while driving a roofless vehicle and died soon after, according to the lawsuit.

Two of Ingraham’s family members sued American Airlines and Menzies, alleging the equipment Ingraham was driving was not properly maintained and caused his death. Menzies was in charge of ensuring the ground vehicle was operating correctly, the lawsuit claims.

As KXAN was reporting this project, the Austin Auditor’s Office released an Aviation Department “risk assessment” report in October that also noted safety concerns and persistent understaffing issues.

The Auditor's Office said the risk assessment was not made in response to a complaint. The office explained it prepares its audit plan by collecting risks it finds while monitoring media reports, peer city audits and its own observations.

"Last year there were multiple issues at the airport that were covered by the media and the year prior we issued an investigation related to the airport," Deputy City Auditor Jason Hadavi told KXAN. "The combination of these issues resulted in us placing the topic on our audit plan."

Rapid growth has been a significant obstacle for the airport, auditors said in the report.

The airport opened in 1999 with a capacity for 11 million travelers per year. Since then, the airport has “significantly outgrown” that capacity, according to the auditor’s report. By FAA standards, the facility recently transitioned from a medium to large airport – which is the biggest commercial airport classification based on volume and activities. In 2023, AUS had over 22 million travelers.

The auditor’s report listed safety at a high level of risk.

“In 2023, multiple safety incidents, including two worker fatalities and a near miss between two planes, sparked concern from local and federal government officials over staffing and safety at the Airport,” the report states.

Apron incident data difficult to track

It is not clear exactly how Austin's airport compares to other large airports, in terms of injuries and deaths on the apron. Federal agencies that responded to KXAN said they do not specifically track incidents in that area.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it would only be involved in investigating an incident on the apron if there was "an intent for flight, a plane’s engines are running, or if the actions of the flight crew are involved." None of those criteria were met in Ingraham's or Wills' deaths. The FAA said questions about apron incidents should be directed to airports and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which are primarily responsible for airfield worker safety.

When KXAN reached out to OSHA with questions about Mike Wills' death, an OSHA spokesperson said the agency has "no jurisdiction over city employees" like Wills. OSHA closed its investigation into Wills death on April 19, 2024, and did not issue a citation.

Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported an increase in airport ground worker injuries following the pandemic. In the Journal’s own analysis of OSHA data, it found the rate of injuries that caused a lost day of work per 100 airport workers had increased 17% in 2022 compared to three years earlier. However, that analysis included aviation jobs like check-in agents and cabin crews that work outside the apron.

The Journal’s report identified understaffing as a persistent problem for airports. Austin auditors also identified that issue at AUS. The Aviation Department's spokesperson acknowledged job vacancy concerns but said the department has a plan to address it.

'Significant challenges'

“Aviation has had significant challenges with their staffing levels over the past few years, as have peer airports,” according to the auditor’s risk assessment. “Staff reported issues with a lengthy hiring process and non-competitive compensation. Many key employees are nearing or past retirement eligibility, and there appears to be a lack of clear succession planning.”

Without enough personnel, current workers must shoulder more duties and work overtime to fill the gaps, the report states.

“Due to these challenges, Aviation has become increasingly reliant on third-party contractors to deliver airport services,” the auditors said they learned.

The former airport employee who spoke with KXAN said “safety falls by the wayside” when employees are overloaded.

“That group (airside operations) is just so overwhelmed, so underpaid, so understaffed -- lack of resources,” the worker said. “There's just nowhere near enough support to that group.”

The airport’s airside operations group has a 30% vacancy rate in full-time, permanent workers – higher than the 17% overall rate for the Aviation Department, according to Haynes. Still, the department is currently meeting its airside operations minimum staffing requirements, with at least two people on during the day and one at night.

She said the Aviation Department is working to raise the pay for airside operations postings. Fiscal year 2024 budget records show increased pay for several positions and a few new positions – including some managerial ones. 

Haynes said the department is looking to hire an officer over emergency management, and it recently hired a division manager to oversee the rollout and "strategic vision" of the safety management system, or SMS.

The FAA approved the Aviation Department’s SMS plan in April. Now, said Haynes, they have about 36 months to put it in place.

The airport employee who spoke with KXAN agreed that implementing the SMS will be the next big step.

“The solution is more people — people who can address the safety issues in the way that they're supposed to, in ways that are non-punitive, you know, so that things can be learned from. Those are the concepts of safety management systems,” said the employee who spoke with KXAN anonymously.

A safer way forward?

Safety Management Systems “really came into fashion in the 80s and 90s,” said Bob Joyce, director of aviation safety for the College of Aviation Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Daytona Beach campus.

By 2015, Joyce said, air carrier operators were required to implement them. Now, the requirement has spread to large airports, including AUS, according to FAA records.

Joyce described SMS as a “top-down organizational approach” for policy, risk management, safety assurance and promotion. A key aspect is the appointment of an accountable executive and one or more safety managers to “ensure that all their safety processes are being conducted and, of course, the follow-up and ongoing education and training,” he said.

The airport employee who spoke with KXAN said they were skeptical the Aviation Department would dedicate enough staff and resources to make the program effective.

If properly staffed, the airport employee said, the SMS would be the best approach to minimizing dangerous conditions and deadly risks – like the ones that caused the fatal incidents in 2023.

Haynes, meanwhile, said the airport is working to hire and retain enough people for the SMS.

“We're working towards it, and we've made a lot of milestones in progress just within the last few months," Haynes said.

While her lawsuit is focused on the contractor involved in her dad's death, Jillian Wills said she hopes any safety changes at the airport spark enough accountability to keep workers like the ones on her dad’s team safe.

“Nobody should ever go to work and have to be worried about not coming home,” she said.

Investigative Photojournalist Richie Bowes, Investigative Photojournalist Chris Nelson and Digital Director Kate Winkle contributed to this report.