Two workers were killed and another was seriously injured at a Delta Air Lines maintenance facility near Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport early Tuesday morning, the company said.
The incident occurred near the international terminal of the world’s busiest airport, at Atlanta-based Delta’s wheel and brake shop inside its sprawling TechOps maintenance facility. Atlanta Fire Rescue Department units and police responded to the scene on Maynard H. Jackson Jr. Boulevard after 5 a.m.
Few details were released, but it involved aircraft wheel components that were in the shop being disassembled for maintenance and not attached to a plane, Delta said late Tuesday.
Mirko Marweg, 58, who lived in Stone Mountain, and Luis Aldarondo, 37, who lived in Newnan, were killed in the incident, the Clayton County Medical Examiner’s office said.
Reached by phone Tuesday afternoon, Marweg’s wife, Scottie Ann Marweg, described her husband as a giving man. “He helped anybody out,” she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “He was a loving father and a loving husband, loving brother.”
Delta said it is investigating to determine what caused the incident.
It raises questions about safety procedures in the airline maintenance operation, where employees often are working around large components and equipment.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration said it is investigating. The Federal Aviation Administration said it was aware of the incident and is “in communication with the airline.” Delta said it is working with authorities.
Delta TechOps President John Laughter said in a memo to TechOps workers Tuesday morning that two TechOps team members died and another was seriously injured. “We are extending our full support to their families at this difficult time and conducting an investigation to determine what happened,” Laughter said.
“This news is heartbreaking for all of us,” he added.
Laughter told Delta TechOps employees that the company would have Employee Assistance Program resources on site for support, along with counselors available 24/7.
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Delta TechOps is the airline’s maintenance, repair and overhaul operation, which operates out of large hangars near the airport. The incident occurred at one of those hangars.
There was no impact to flights, said Hartsfield-Jackson spokesman Andrew Gobeil.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens posted a statement on social media offering his “deepest condolences to the family and loved ones” of the workers who died, and hope for recovery for the injured.
Dickens said Atlanta fire, police and airport teams responded to the scene.
Airlines often emphasize the importance of safety in an industry that brings many risks. Delta CEO Ed Bastian told employees in a message last week that the company had seen “significant reductions in injuries during the first half of 2024 versus last year.”
Bastian noted the improvement in a memo on Chief Operating Officer Mike Spanos’ departure from Delta to take a job at another company, saying Spanos had helped to “advance Delta’s performance over the past year.”
After Tuesday’s incident, the International Association of Machinists, a union seeking to organize workers at Delta, called on the airline and authorities to “quickly launch a thorough investigation into how this happened.”
The union said it “expresses our deepest condolences to the victims’ families following the tragic incident that occurred,” a written statement said.
It’s not the first time a Delta worker has died in an accident at work. Last August, an employee at a cargo facility in San Francisco was killed after driving an electric tug into a cargo box and getting pinned between it and the tug, an OSHA report said.
In 2010, a baggage tug vehicle driver was ejected from his vehicle and died. That led to a settlement with OSHA in which Delta agreed to install seat belts on airport vehicles. That driver was one of two Delta employees who died in different incidents in 2010 after being ejected from baggage tugs.
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