'These are safety issues'

De-icer falsified key documents, DIA official says

By Brian Maass, Cbs 4 News

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Rocky Mountain News / 2001

Crews de-ice an outgoing plane at DIA during a 2001 snowstorm.

A major contractor at Denver International Airport has committed "alarming" safety violations by apparently falsifying critical safety documents, according to the airport's deputy manager of aviation.

John Kinney, who oversees airport operations, viewed the results of a three-month CBS 4 News investigation into the conduct of Servisair, the largest de-icing contractor at DIA.

"What we saw on the video was very concerning," Kinney said.

Servisair de-ices planes for 22 airlines at DIA. It hired nearly 500 de-icers, or "icemen" as they are known, to work this winter.

Each is supposed to receive about two hours of training by Servisair in driving around the airfield.

After that, the employees are sent to receive a security badge from DIA, a badge that indicates the employees have been properly trained.

When a CBS 4 producer applied for a de-icing job with Servisair, he never received any driving training. Even so, Servisair sent him to get an airport security badge, with a driving endorsement.

An undercover camera was rolling as a female Servisair administrator filled out an official DIA form for the CBS 4 employee so he could get a driving endorsement.

"So, if they ask you if you did your driving training, yeah," she says. "You will do it when you do OJT (on the job training)."

She then fills out a form for the employee indicating he had already received comprehensive training in driving around DIA's restricted areas.

She signed it "Eric Hanson," the name of the man who provides driving training for Servisair.

The CBS 4 employee never met Eric Hanson. But armed with the form, DIA personnel provided him with a security badge clearing him to drive around the airfield.

'Not the way'

The transaction was "totally inappropriate," said Larry Alfs, Servisair's director of de-icing operations.

"We're very surprised. This is not the way we do things," Alfs said.

The CBS 4 investigation found this wasn't an isolated case.

A Servisair de-icer who was hired earlier this fall said he never received driving training and was given a falsified form by the company allowing him to obtain a security badge from DIA with a driving endorsement. The man spoke on the condition his name not be used.

"It was a total lie," he said. "He (a Servisair manager) said if I was asked by DIA security if I received the training, tell them 'Yes, I got it already,' and then he signed the form off.

Hasn't received training

"That's a real safety issue," the de-icer said. "Some of these people are going to drive their equipment with no idea where to go or how to do it. As far as I'm concerned, they could run into a plane or go into a runway."

The Servisair employee showed CBS 4 his security badge, with its driving endorsement.

"To this day I haven't received that training," he said.

The licensing of unqualified employees comes even as DIA has implemented rigorous new rules for anyone who drives around the airfield.

Those changes were prompted by a series of incursions involving planes and vehicles. On Feb. 2, a DIA snowplow driver drove onto an active runway in front of a United Airlines jet that had just landed. The plane's pilots used emergency braking to avoid colliding with the plow.

All of which makes the actions of Servisair even more egregious to DIA administrators.

"There's no excuse," said Kinney. "These are safety issues."

Kinney said he was notifying the FAA of the infractions.

Additionally, he said, Servisair managers were being ordered to attend a hearing this week to explain what the CBS 4 investigation uncovered.

Kinney said DIA also was undertaking its own investigation of Servisair's driver training.

Late last week, under pressure from DIA administrators, Servisair ordered all its de-icers back for two hours of "additional mandatory driver training."