Southwest Airlines Tug Plows Through Crew Break Room In Fort Lauderdale

A Southwest Airlines tug went through a wall and into an employee break room at the Fort Lauderdale airport on Monday. Someone on social media writes, “did someone say there’s fresh doughnuts in the ready room!!?”

Airport tugs often malfunction. Frequently an employee will notice something wrong with it towards the end of their shift but fail to red tag it. This can have dangerous consequences – last summer a malfunctioning tug was suspected in the death of a ramp worker though an investigation ultimately concluded that there wasn’t a mechanical failure.

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Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Don’t worry, thanks to Southwest’s union contract (and the company allowing this), there won’t be any post-accident drug or alcohol test and the employee can go to the doctor of the union’s (I mean uhh their own) choosing.

  2. I had someone do this with a pushback unit once…. they turned the thing off after accelerating backward toward the parking spot next to the building. Well, guess what…. hydraulic brakes don’t work when the motor isn’t running…

    All they did was push the wall in a little bit… didn’t make it more than a few inches into the building. That employee, as I fired them, I told them I was disappointed they passed the drug and alcohol test because at least if they’d failed they would have had an excuse that didn’t make them look quite as dumb.

  3. The video has some guy screaming. I didn’t see it coming; I would have been dead. I guess his chair is the one with a yellow vest.

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