Can A Person Get Sucked Into A Jet Engine? Here's What You Need To Know

For as much as we like to think we've gained complete control over the forces of nature that allow us to fly at high speed, the fact of the matter is that these processes are still incredibly hazardous to human life. No matter how much control we think we have, there is always a possibility for tragedy, especially with something as powerful and complex as a jet engine on a fighter jet or commercial airliner.

The main thing that makes a jet engine so dangerous to humans is the incredible suction force it produces in order to take in the large quantities of air necessary to burn fuel. That suction is more than powerful enough to draw in and lift up an adult human, and with the many spinning blades within the engine, the outcome is frighteningly apparent. Of course, the aviation industry at large is more than aware of the dangers that come with jet engines, which is why numerous protections and precautions are employed to keep personnel and passengers as far from the danger zone as realistically possible.

In order to burn the specialized fuel necessary to generate powerful, sky-defying thrust, jet engines need to take in a lot of air. Just having air pass through the turbine passively wouldn't be enough. This is why jet engines employ an air compression mechanism to forcefully draw air in at an accelerated rate. With this mechanism, over 1 million tons of air are drawn into the turbine per second.

Naturally, a mechanism that draws that much air that quickly is incredibly powerful, more than powerful enough to lift up something as comparatively light as a human being. If the turbine were just an empty passage, this wouldn't be as much of a problem, but within it is a large fan made up of many blades, spinning at thousands of rotations per second. If an individual is captured by the suction force and drawn fully into the engine, there is sadly only one potential outcome.

While incidents involving people being sucked into jet engines are thankfully few and far between, to date, nobody who has entered the engine fully has survived. One of the few noteworthy exceptions was a sailor who was only partially sucked into the engine of an A-6 Intruder aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Because his equipment was sucked in by the engine first, the blades were damaged, giving him slightly more clearance to hold himself out of the engine proper. The sailor was severely injured in the process, but ultimately survived.

The dangers of a spinning jet engine are very well understood by both the commercial aviation industry and militaries of the world, which is why various protective measures are employed to keep everyone far away from those spinning blades.

For workers on an airport tarmac, for instance, everyone is trained to know the precise danger zone of any given plane's jet engines. A Boeing 737-800's engines have a minimum safe distance of about 14 feet, while a Global 7000's engines have a minimum safe distance of about 5 feet and 6 inches. These danger zones are usually marked with safety cones, often placed slightly further out than the actual limit as an extra precaution. Workers are also encouraged to keep their clothes and equipment tight and secured so they can't be sucked in, as well as maintain constant contact via radio. If a worker is ever unsure whether the engine is running, the spirals on the front clearly show their rotation. As for passengers, the jetways passengers walk through to reach the plane are, first and foremost, meant to protect them from the engines' powerful suction. If you feel a strong breeze leaking through when you step on or off a plane, that's a fraction of the engine's force in action.

In spite of all this, accidents can still happen. In late 2022, a ramp agent in Alabama was killed after being sucked into a jet engine. This incident was attributed to a lack of communication, resulting in the agent entering the danger zone before the engines stopped spinning.