US air force finds contractor who walked into propeller had become disorientated

Stephanie Cosme, 32, was killed last year when she inadvertently walked into the rotating propeller of an aircraft in California

A US air force civilian contractor had become disoriented recording data at an airport in California last year when she walked into a jet’s rotating propeller and was killed, officials said on Friday.

In a statement outlining the findings of a report into the contractor’s death, the air force materiel command said that 32-year-old Stephanie Cosme was mortally injured on 7 September when she inadvertently walked into the rotating propeller of an MQ-9A that was parked at Gray Butte airfield.

anon_8675309,

How very “Breakout” of her.

Okay, that was bad. Poor lady.

reddig33,

Is disorientated a word? Isn’t it just “disoriented”?

leftzero,

Disorientated is the proper word in English, disoriented is the American misspelling.

reddig33,

Today I learned.

Daxtron2,

Classic British prescriptivism

Gabu,

If anything, it’s the US that is prescritivist. You decided to change half of your words for no freaking reason.

Daxtron2,

That’s not what prescriptivism means lmao

Gabu,

Apparently you’re also illiterate. Here, have someone read this for you:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription

TIMMAY,

deleted_by_moderator

    •
    Gabu,

    Are you aware of the level of hypocrisy in your argumentation?

    Daxtron2,

    Prescriptivism is assigning rules to language as opposed to descriptivism which takes language as is and analyzes it. You saying American English decided to change half of their words for no reason is a classic prescriptivist stance, ignoring the fact that the language diverged due to distance and loss of shared culture. Not to mention many American spellings and pronunciations are closer to the originals before the split than Modern British English is :)

    stoicmaverick,

    Really? Ever wonder where the word “Soccer” came from?

    Gabu,

    First, why would I care? Second, I do know where it comes from. Third, how does futball relate to the discussion?

    leftzero, (edited )

    It’s an abbreviation of “association football”.

    Why Americans would call gridiron football when it involves neither feet nor balls, now, that truly boggles the mind.

    stoicmaverick,

    It USED to involve a lot more kicking than it currently does. The rules have changed considerably over the years, but the name never did. That’s the reason if you were actually curious.

    force,

    Pray tell us, which words?

    Gabu,

    Nearly every word with a “ou” diphthong, “s” into “z” or vice-versa, “c” into “s”, the swap of “-re” for “-er”, etc.

    force, (edited )

    Nearly every word with a “ou” diphthong

    Not a diphthong. A digraph. Either way American English didn’t “change” this, the now-prevailing British and American standards just standardized different spellings.

    “s” into “z” or vice-versa, “c” into “s”, the swap of “-re” for “-er”, etc.

    I assume you’re referencing words like realize/realise, defense/defence, maneuver/maneouvre. In which case same thing as for o/ou, Americans didn’t “change” this. These were spellings that were already common throughout Middle English; American and British varietes of English just happened to diverge around the time of the printing press (because the printing press was introduced to the English right at the beginning of colonization of the Americas) and they adopted different standards based on the many, MANY spellings already in use.

    Saying the Americans were [more] “prescriptivist” because common standard spellings in the US and common standard spellings in the UK are different is… a take, for sure.

    Gabu,

    Not a diphthong. A digraph.

    Ah, yes, I love the flavo-ur of tomatoes. Their odo-ur is quite nice.

    The “ou” digraph was only merged as a single “o” where it represents a diphthong. Way to instantly discredit yourself.

    force,

    … what? You seem to be unaware of what a diphthong is. “ou” is a digraph, which in words like “flavour” tend to “represent” a monophthong (or a syllabic rhotic in GenAm). You clearly do not know enough about the linguistics you’re trying to argue about.

    vaultdweller013,

    Actually we had a reason, back in the colonial era printers charged by the letter. Hence a lot of words became simplified, solder keeping its silent l is a bit weird though. Also solder is pronounced soder, the English latinized their dialect awhile back for some fucken reason.

    TwanHE,

    TF you mean the l is silent.

    vaultdweller013,

    In solder the l is silent, the Romans pronounced it with an l but by the time it got to English it had been dropped. Blame the French. Frankly Latinizing a dialect seems a hell of a lot harder than just changing the spelling to sauder, soder, or sodder which I have seen as acceptable alternatives to the frankly weird solder.

    TwanHE,

    I’ve never heard it spoken without the l. Neither in England nor here in the Netherlands.

    cyrl,

    10 years in electronics, and I’m yet to hear solder once despite working for an international firm.

    vaultdweller013,

    That has to do morseso with the rise of soldering as a semi common method of welding or whatever you want to call it. Before the 20th century soldering was a blacksmiths use meaning it was a much rarer word to hear. Most folks will look at the spelling and assume thats how its pronounced. Hell most folks in my area who are younger than 30 pronounce it with an l.

    Also the singular sold is still preserved in slang. Namely ad sod. Soldering was a filling method, and a person getting filled is called getting fucked. So to sod someone is to fuck someone.

    gerbler,

    In Australia we spell and pronounce it solder

    force,

    Soldier is pronounced with an /l/ in most English dialects. I actually can’t think of a major variety where it isn’t.

    Gabu,

    S O L D E R

    force,

    Solder is pronounced using /l/ in varieties like British English and often in Southern American English

    Gabu,

    You wrote “soldier” instead of “solder”.

    force,

    Very similar looking words. My mistake.

    eardon,

    She became disoriented… recording data?

    KISSmyOSFeddit,

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/eb77d134-fdba-410c-86ce-3ca38cd0ab71.jpeg

    deft,

    yeah like what?

    dantheclamman,
    @dantheclamman@lemmy.world avatar

    The loudness of the plane, plus looking down at the device, plus the prop moving so fast and high enough off the ground that she didn’t see it in corner of her eye.

    MyNamesNotRobert, (edited )

    I hope she at least died immediately, that sounds like a terrible way to go.

    SkyezOpen,

    That’s a reaper drone. The bottom of the prop is about 4 or 5 feet off the ground. I’m confident it was quick, morbid as that sounds.

    Linkerbaan,
    @Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

    She was working on reaper drones. I hope she died a painful slow death.

    b3an,
    @b3an@lemmy.world avatar

    Evil.

    Linkerbaan,
    @Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

    Yes this woman was evil.

    RatBin,

    If you have a mirror, and you do, look no further to find that.

    Linkerbaan,
    @Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

    Lemmy: ACAB EAT THE RICH

    Also Lemmy: why would someone say something negative about this woman working for the military to directly help them commit massive war crimes?

    0xD,

    Yes, lemmy is a monolith of opinions.

    Gabu,

    If you don’t think capitalism and modern 'murican police are a problem, that only makes you more scum, not @Linkerbaan’s argument worse.

    0xD,

    You seem to have missed my point.

    This platform is full of people with differing opinions. Saying things like “Oh wow, just yesterday lemmy said this and now it’s this!” is just stupid and doesn’t make any sense.

    FabledAepitaph,

    Grow up.

    Warfare equipment is required to defend, as well as attack. Let’s see who you’re calling evil when a would-be attacking nation waltzes in and rapes your family while you’re tied up in the corner, and then murders you like the Russians were doing to the Ukrainians.

    That woman was doing the hard work that you were unable to, because you’re too much of a bitch to accept reality.

    Linkerbaan,
    @Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

    Oh look it’s the same “grow up” logic from the Genocide defenders.

    I see those reaper drones helping israel commit Genocide by mapping Gaza and bombing Yemen. They’re not doing much to defend Ukraine.

    zerog_bandit,

    Comments like these make me want as many drones in Gaza as possible.

    FabledAepitaph,

    Are you calling me a genocide defender? Explain.

    Why are you even suggesting that I am a genocide defendee we when the very example I gave was to help prevent a genocide in Ukraine? Lol.

    Ah, it’s probably because you don’t actually have a winning argument, and you’re just grasping at straws to defend your fantasy-hopes-and-dreams world views.

    Linkerbaan,
    @Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

    You didn’t give one you dreamt one up.

    merthyr1831,

    “grow up” followed by a rape fantasy to justify simping for the US military

    FabledAepitaph,

    Your context makes no sense. Who is having a rape fantasy?

    phoenixz,

    You should maybe read up a little on this concept called “war” and what happens to civilians in those situations. It ain’t pretty and it’s the reason why countries have militaries. Yeah, I’d love to dump the military too, like everyone, but then second you do, your loved one would -indeed- likely be raped by invading enemies.

    Socsa,

    Lemmy: Communism is when no military!

    Gabu,

    'muricans don’t have a brain, holy shit. If you want to suck military dick so much, at least set up an onlyfans so your capitalist hellhole doesn’t fuck you quite as hard.

    FabledAepitaph,

    What are you even talking about? I don’t even care about the military–I’m just telling you that if you don’t have a weapon, the next guy who does is going to come in and make you regret it.

    I didnt make the rules–im just telling you how it is. Stop being a dumbass.

    zerog_bandit,

    That’s what these ruzzia bots are trying to do. They want as much of the world as possible weak and undefended so they can rape it like Ukraine. Legit inhuman savages.

    Gabu,

    Where is your evidence of those “rules”?

    VirtualOdour,

    Literally all of history.

    Gabu,

    Funny, you seem unable to point to evidence. Or do you think, when asked about evidence of an exoplanet existing, a physicist will say “well, look at all of physics”?

    Socsa,

    Don’t cut yourself with that edge

    GhostFence,

    No. I’d rather the warmongers who deploy them take her place. Karma should hit the top of the hierarchy not the bottom.

    deranger,

    “Disorientated” gets me. Why not save a few letters and use “disoriented”? You don’t orientate yourself to your environment, you orient yourself.

    Num10ck,

    Disoriented is the US version; disorientated is the British version.

    Dozzi92,
    @Dozzi92@lemmy.world avatar

    Never thought about that. People frequently say orientate at my work (I am a stenographer) and it bothers me to no end, because it takes me longer to write orientate versus orient. But now it makes sense, British language.

    Cypher,

    What is your orient vs what is your orientation?

    Orient is weird to me in most circumstances. Also reminiscent of referring to Asia as “the Orient” aka the orient express.

    Also: merriam-webster.com/…/orient-or-orientate-is-it-a…

    Dozzi92,
    @Dozzi92@lemmy.world avatar

    I dunno if I’ve heard someone say “What is your orient?” Usually more allow me to orient/orientate you to this map. I prefer orient because that’s just O-RNT in stenographer world. Orientate is O-RNT/TAEUT, with the slash representing a second stroke, so twice as much effort. I’m a low effort kinda person.

    Kase,

    Btw, I don’t hear people say “orient” except as a verb, but I do sometimes hear “oriention” used the same way as “orientation.” Orientation is more common tho ¯⁠\⁠(⁠°⁠_⁠o⁠)⁠/⁠¯

    deranger,

    Still doesn’t make sense to me. There’s no need for the “tate”. She was disoriented, not properly oriented. Do you say “orientate” for the verb, or “orient”?

    Cypher,

    merriam-webster.com/…/orient-or-orientate-is-it-a…

    deranger,

    It is not uncommon for words in English to have variants which are slightly longer than they need to be, and our collective response to these words is somewhat capricious; some of them make people Very Angry (irregardless, conversate, preventative), while others (commentator) seem to elicit little more than a shrug.

    Yeah, I take issue with all of these, including commentator, despite it being commonly used. Just say commenter. They’re commenting. I don’t care for all these extra taters.

    Fridgeratr,

    Irregardless is just straight up incorrect though, it means regardful

    DelightfullyDivisive,

    Correct - its a double negative. Similar to “inflammable” which should mean “not flammable”, but doesn’t.

    Cypher,

    Commentator is a better fit for grammar in general speech IMO.

    On Tuesday John Doe, a commentator for the local….

    On Tuesday John Doe, a commenter for the local…

    Commenter sounds like someone made a comment as opposed to commentator which sounds like a job title. At least to me.

    deranger,

    Fair enough, you make a point with that. It serves a function there, but I still contend the tate in orientate is superfluous.

    DelightfullyDivisive,

    IIRC, “irregardless” was added to more US dictionaries in the late 20th century. I had a coworker in the early 90s who would become viscerally angry when others would use it…so the rest of us would use it often.

    franglais,

    There are many occasions when speaking another language (yes American English is a different language to British English imo) where you just have to say, “that’s how it is, it doesn’t make sense, but there we go”. The English took the word from the french désorienté, which means to turn away from the orient.

    NoIWontPickAName,

    Yeah, that’s why we call them Orientals!

    FunkPhenomenon,

    I bet everyone that witnessed her brief propeller interaction was disorientated

    AA5B,

    For me, it was the article describing walking into the propeller of a jet. Clearly someone didn’t read this over before clicking submit

    shottymcb,

    It’s a turboprop plane, so a jet engine driving a propeller. Definitely sounds weird when phrased like that though.

    captain_aggravated,
    @captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

    It’s like how for awhile there you would hear the phrase “jet helicopter.” Meaning a helicopter powered by a turboshaft engine, like the Huey. You don’t hear that very often these days because there’s virtually no helicopters in significant service with reciprocating engines that aren’t made by Robinson.

    eardon,

    They’re padding the report just like someone writing a paper on a subject they don’t understand.

    They know it was their fault for not training her properly, but as typical they try to deflect blame to anyone else.

    It’s pretty well understood that financial reports of public companies that aren’t trying to hide something are easier to read than ones from companies that are trying to hide something. I think this is another example of that concept.

    ShepherdPie,

    Did George W Bush write this report? That sounds like a a made up word for when you can’t remember the actual word.

    pyrate37,

    My favorite by Trump:

    Covfefe

    seth,

    That sounds like a terrible way to go, and utterly horrifying for the people who had to witness it, and those who had to collect and clean up her remains.

    hemko,

    Tbf, she probably died very quickly. Now the mess after her is going to be nasty. And everywhere

    Num10ck,

    mistifying.

    NoIWontPickAName,

    You’re going to hell for that and I’m going to hell for laughing at it

    Krauerking,

    the air force materiel command accident investigation board said it found two causes for the incident.

    “First,” the board said, “the test engineer was incorrectly instructed or trained on how to take telemetry readings when approaching the MQ-9A while the engine was running. Second, she lost situational awareness while walking around the mishap aircraft taking telemetry readings with a hand-held measurement device.”

    Yeah, no one warned her how deadly this was and not thinking about she walked right into that propeller looking down. Not sure that relieves them or fault but definitely an accurate assessment of what happened

    catloaf,

    There’s fault on both sides. The Air Force for not training her properly, and her for walking around operating equipment without paying attention to things that’ll kill you.

    Legally, though, the Air Force is probably going to pay out for her death.

    turmacar,

    The military is a lot more tolerant about working around running aircraft than civilians. Nominally there’s a lot more training/drilling/etc to keep situational awareness up… But also occasionally someone walks into a prop or gets sucked into a jet.

    I’m sure this’ll spawn a new series of briefings.

    Not sure how it’ll work with any payouts since she was a contractor. In general you’re being paid more at the cost of less of the compensation packages that service members get.

    disguy_ovahea,

    “Others began shouting and waving to get [Cosme’s] attention as well,” the report said.

    They warned her, but she didn’t look up. It’s horrible that they had to witness that.

    Krauerking,

    Oh no, you don’t hear anything near a running plane. Shouting at the time is pissing in the wind. Definitely on her a bit for not checking in often around a moving death machine. But shouting over the whir doesn’t count.

    Still truly awful to witness anything that horrific. As someone that has, the right answer is absolutely to look away and don’t let anyone tell you, you are wrong to.

    disguy_ovahea,

    I’m sorry you had to witness that. It’s good advice, but I can’t imagine logic taking over instinctive desire to stop them. Let’s hope neither of us need this advice in the future.

    EmpathicVagrant,

    Why was a civilian allowed to record around active jets and expected to safely lead themselves? Pokémon go had to warn people not to walk off cliffs and into traffic, but the Air Force is accessory to this without having someone to watch her movements and nothing?

    bhmnscmm,
    @bhmnscmm@lemmy.world avatar

    Her job was to be on active tarmac near running aircraft. She isn’t some random person that shouldn’t have been there.

    It appears she wasn’t paying attention and people tried to stop her from walking into the propeller.

    “Others began shouting and waving to get [Cosme’s] attention as well,” the report said. It added: “Without looking up to determine her position relative to the aircraft, [Cosme] proceeded to walk directly into the propeller … sustaining fatal injuries.”

    eardon,

    “We’ve investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing.”

    I guess because it’s not cops and because the snowball effect has taken hold, this rhetoric suddenly doesn’t apply.

    leftzero,

    They did find wrongdoing on their part: they didn’t train or instruct her adequately. It’s just that her becoming disorientated was also a contributing factor.

    Cops would have just called her an immigrant terrorist or something, and planted drugs on her remains.

    Empricorn,

    Huh. It appears the investigation shows she was trained incorrectly.

    theguardian.com/…/us-air-force-contractor-death-s…

    John_McMurray,

    Probably an accident due to familiarity. Some guy off the street is gonna pay attention around a running airplane, someone been working around them for years might just get distracted.

    chiliedogg,

    Over-familiarity and comfort is a major cause of accidents.

    I do a lot of woodworking, and the most dangerous things are repetitive tasks. Make the same simple cut 200 times in a row on a table saw, and it gets more dangerous as you get in the groove, not less.

    tal,
    @tal@lemmy.today avatar

    Why was a civilian allowed to record around active jets and expected to safely lead themselves?

    I mean, I walk on a sidewalk right next to traffic. I’ve worked with power tools. People work around heavy machinery.

    We come in close proximity to things that have enough energy to kill us on a not-irregular basis.

    EmpathicVagrant,

    Cars are machinery the public is integrated with and understands the dangers of - she can’t be expected to navigate distracted as though she’s trained to be around active jets. It is not the same thing at all as being near the street.

    catloaf,

    That’s her job, so yes, she is expected to work around active jets.

    But it sounds like this was at least partially due to a failure in training.

    EmpathicVagrant,

    That’s why I said expected to navigate as though she’s trained, because you certainly don’t walk around without looking around just because you’re holding a camera if you’re trained to be around a giant suction blender.

    TyrionsNose,

    I think people underestimate how many civilians work alongside our men and women in uniform. Walk out to any hangar on a base in the US and it will be close to half and half. If it’s test facility it may be more civilians.

    eardon,

    You are correct, but the snowball effect has taken hold so it’s up to people smarter than the average lemmy/redditor to do things right.

    Fal,
    @Fal@yiffit.net avatar

    There are all kinds of civilians working for the military. This isn’t some active war zone where she stepped on a land mine. Every civilian doing work on an airport tar mac doesn’t require a military member holding their hand to tell them not to walk into spinning proppellers. Blaming this on the military vs just an unfortunate accident is just ridiculous

    Empricorn,

    Huh. It appears the investigation shows she was trained incorrectly.

    theguardian.com/…/us-air-force-contractor-death-s…

    Fal,
    @Fal@yiffit.net avatar

    That doesn’t make you right. That’s very different from expecting a military member to follow her around to keep her safe. The training likely would have come from the contracting company she was working for, not the military

    Empricorn,

    My comment/edit was really more of an update on the incident than a vindication of my initial reaction, though there’s some of that too.

    You wrote:

    Blaming this on the military vs just an unfortunate accident is just ridiculous

    That’s false. Even the military themself admitted as much. Facts matter…

    Empricorn, (edited )

    EDIT: I was right:

    theguardian.com/…/us-air-force-contractor-death-s…

    I don’t think anyone’s claiming it was during the chaos of wartime, but it was an active airfield. So yes, it’s their responsibility to limit access, keep track of everyone, and keep both pedestrians and vehicles/aircraft safe.

    the air force materiel command accident investigation board said it found two causes for the incident.

    “First,” the board said, “the test engineer was incorrectly instructed or trained on how to take telemetry readings when approaching the MQ-9A while the engine was running. Second, she lost situational awareness while walking around the mishap aircraft taking telemetry readings with a hand-held measurement device.”

    Cyyris,

    I guarantee she had access lol. Getting access to a flight line is not as difficult as you’re making it out to be.

    If her job duties included…you know, being on the flight line (as it sounds like her contract absolutely was,) all she had to do was get the SMO to verify her clearance, verify her job duties, assign her a RAB, and she’s good to go. Guaranteed she had all of the correct clearances and authorizations.

    If you’ve got access to the area, nobody is going to follow you around and “keep track of everyone.”

    I know this because I had all of this access as a civilian contractor when working on a military installation.

    Empricorn,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    Cyyris,

    Now that does not shock me in the least. The contract I worked for the USAF was to provide IT services.

    You know how many usable SOPs or process guides they had available to train us with? None. Not a single one. We recreated each and every process after having to fumble through it ourselves.

    There’s so much transition in the USAF that unless you have a civilian or contractor working alongside the uniformed workers, it only takes like one or two PCS cycles until there’s not a single person left that remembers the processes unless they’re written down in a detailed SOP (that is updated regularly.)

    Empricorn, (edited )

    That’s interesting. I also have to poke fun at the use of 5 acronyms used. Military + IT = Acronym Endgame Boss.

    So how did you get access to military contacts anyway? Do I need to find a company that will get me those clearances?

    Cyyris,

    Ah…yeah, whoops 😅. IT & Military definitely love their acronyms!

    But you’ve got it pretty much spot on! Just keep an eye out for the various companies that are winning defense contracts; I usually keep an eye out on this site to see what’s going on out there: news.clearancejobs.com/…/defense-contracts/

    Once you find one you’re interested in, the job listing will usually tell you it requires a certain level of clearance. Depending on the job, some will expect you to already have said clearance, but most will not. The company will apply for your clearance on your behalf, referencing the contract that you’ve been hired for. Then you get to go through the extremely fun process of a 30+ page background check, where you get to go through the last ten years of your life. Where you lived, who knew you at those addresses, where you’ve been out of the country, jobs you’ve held, etc. The very first one I did was in my early 20’s, so going back 10 years I was filling in my parents address when I was still in high school! It’s really not that bad, but they definitely ask a lot of off-the-wall stuff.

    You’ll usually get an “interim” clearance a few months after you apply, which will allow you to do your work, but you’ll get your final clearance after about a year or so (assuming everything checks out.) Once you’ve got it, you keep it for 5 years, and it’ll automatically be renewed as long as your job requires it, and it can be transferred between companies if they require you to have a clearance.

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