Maintenance technicians working on an A320 aircraft reported inadvertent gear retraction causing minor injury to another technician.
Synopsis
Maintenance technicians working on an A320 aircraft reported inadvertent gear retraction causing minor injury to another technician.
Narrative
Person 2; Person 4 and I [Person 1] were assigned to Aircraft X. Landing gears doors were already in the down position. The Lead [Person 3] assigned us with removing the accumulator that was; causing a hydraulic leak. The Lead and I pulled breakers; depressurize the system; removing the head pressure. We removed the bottle placed on the table; replace the valve and packing reinstalled the bottle pressurize the system and the Lead pushed in all the breakers. then we refilled the green hydraulic reservoir. The accumulator still leaked; we received a new accumulator we replaced it; Person 2 and the Lead proceeded to go upstairs to the flight deck. The Lead was in an hurry to get the job done before night shift came on. The Lead stowed the manual gear drop and proceeded to turn on the system approx XE00 hours. At that time I was next to the green hydraulic system reservoir I went around to where the ladder that was inside the wheel well to look if the accumulator was leaking at that time before even knew it; the landing gear and ladder was lifting up and pushing me towards the landing gear wheel. My legs were caught in between the ladder. Person 4 next to me; screamed to get out of the way I wasn't quick enough. He tried radio over the radio to stop for me. I was able to get one foot out and get out of the way from the wheel; and then the ladder went up into the wheel well with the landing gear closing behind it.Suggestion: Slowing down.
Second reporter narrative
There were three AMTs that were farmed out from the terminal to the hangar; we arrived at XA30 and were given a task to finish 2 service on another aircraft on the west ramp at spot X. At around XC00 we were then called out over the radio by our Lead to help find the problem as to why we had an air return on Aircraft X; the original write up was that the pilots reported losing all HYD pressure in the green system after takeoff causing him to manually drop the landing gear. The landing gear pins were already installed and we were told by Lead to standby; as he was going to pressurize HYDs in order to locate where the leak was coming from. We found the leak and were then instructed to begin removing the accumulator while the Lead went to locate and order our parts; we began to pull circuit breakers and depressurizing the green system in order to take the accumulator off. This was accomplished; aside from receiving parts which then arrived around XE30; which was just the joiner and the packing; after installing and leak checking; the leak was still present and bottle needed to be changed along with the joiner and packing; which we then were met by Person A; he assisted in finding the accumulator. after install; around XG00 Person 3 and I went to the cockpit to pressurize HYDS after getting the all clear From both Person A and Lead; Person 3 then stowed the manual gear down handle and pressurized HYDs; the gear doors then came up pinching Person 1 between the ladder and the MLG inboard tire; thankfully he was able to get out in time and only resulted in minor bruises and scrapes.Suggestion: The crew working the job should be the ones touching and carrying out the tests and work. We needed to be more safe when it came to locking out the gear doors; but the configuration of the plane wouldn't have been changed if the original crew was working the problem. No matter the time crunch.
More incidents for this aircraft family →
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.