Cleaning crew killed in Miami cargo jet crash was wrapping up shift at hard, demanding job

Five members of a crew killed when an Amazon cargo jet smashed into their van were wrapping up their eight-hour shift cleaning planes at the Miami airport when the crash happened, lawyers for one of the victims said on Wednesday.

Two other workers in the van were in the hospital for days after their Econoline van was crushed by the speeding jet that investigators said appeared to be reconsidering a landing Sunday before running out of runway.

Yoel Rodriguez Naranjo, 53, came to the U.S. from Cuba in 2011 and worked multiple jobs for his family over the past 14 years, said attorney Jorge Garcia, who is a friend of Naranjo’s family and filed a wrongful death lawsuit on their behalf against Amazon, 21 Air, which operated the plane, and the pilots.

Naranjo was working a 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift for Professional Ocean Service Corp. His wife started frantically texting him when he didn’t arrive home on time. After seeing her texts weren’t being read, she found a news story about the crash, Garcia said.

Naranjo was a “very hardworking man, very loved by his wife, very loved by his son, and as you can imagine what they’ve gone through is really unimaginable,” Garcia said at an online news conference.

Killed along with Naranjo were Rolando Aleman Leon, 55; Julio C. Pineda, 75; Carlos Acosta Fajardo, 53; and Javierkys Reyes Quevedo, 47.

Ridoel Averhoff Diaz, 32, and Roosevelt Sebastian Perdomo Torres, 36, survived the crash but remained in the hospital in critical condition Tuesday, the sheriff’s office said.

Professional Ocean Service Corp. has been cleaning planes at the Miami International Airport for at least 15 years.

“Our employees are far more than the people who work beside us each day, they are family, and they are deeply loved,” the company said in a statement after the crash.

The company cleans and disinfects the inside and outside of both private and commercial jets. Its workers can clean and replace carpet and paint cabins too, according to photos from its website.

Typical airplane cleaning crews lug mops, brooms and other cleaning supplies up and down stairs, reach their hands into seat backs and have to move fast.

“They’re in a van. They get rushed to the airplane and are standing by on the jetway when the airplane arrives. The minute the passengers are off, their foreman is rushing them to get into that airplane to grab every piece of trash, do a wipe down of the bathrooms and countertops, and get the heck out of there,” said Soma Priddle, a retired commercial airline captain and attorney who represents pilots and other aviation workers.

Inside a plane, workers can be exposed to harsh cleaners as well as bodily fluids and other contaminants left by passengers. Outside the plane there is hydraulic fluid, jet fuel and de-icing fluids, she said.

Turnaround time for planes is tight, and if a company can’t meet deadlines they won’t keep cleaning contracts for long, Priddle said.

“It’s a god-awful job,” she said. “They work long hours. They’re just pushed and pushed and pushed.”

Workers typically have little experience and make close to minimum wage with no benefits, said Manny Pastreich, president of 32BJ Service Employees International Union, which represents more than 20,000 airport workers along the East Coast.

“It’s an incredibly hard job and not as well compensated as it should be,” said Pastreich, whose union did not represent the workers killed in Miami.

A report by the union this year focused on Charlotte Douglas International Airport found a shortage of workers left crews feeling rushed and that more than half of them had been at the airport for a year or less.