Two people working at a Delta Air Lines maintenance facility at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport were killed and a third was seriously injured by an explosion in the facility’s wheel and brake shop on Tuesday, according to the airline and authorities.
The accident, which happened just before 5:10 a.m. at Delta’s Atlanta Technical Operations Maintenance facility, killed Mirko F. Marweg, 58, of Stone Mountain, Georgia, and Luis Aldarondo, 37, of Newnan, Georgia, the Clayton County Medical Examiner’s Office said in a statement. Delta confirmed the victims were Delta team members.
“I heard an explosion behind me and saw my co-workers running away from the direction of the explosion,” a witness who was interviewed by the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department said in its incident report. “I walked toward where the explosion occurred and saw a body lying face down, not moving, with blood all around.”
Delta said the accident “involved wheel components that were being disassembled for maintenance and not attached to an aircraft,” but added that the cause is still being investigated.
The Atlanta Police Department and an airport spokesperson directed questions to the airline, which said the cause of the accident is under investigation. Travel was not disrupted on Tuesday morning, the airport said. Delta said the accident didn’t affect customer or maintenance operations.
The status of the person who was injured was not immediately clear. Delta said in an email Tuesday evening that the injured person remains in medical care.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it was aware of the accident but directed questions to Delta. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents airline workers across North America, called for Delta and the authorities “to quickly launch a thorough investigation” into how it happened.
In a social media post, Mayor Andre Dickens of Atlanta offered his “deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of the deceased Delta employees.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.