American Airlines employee hailed a hero after stopping runaway fuel truck

Darren Carbone is a longtime employee of American Airlines and is now considered to be a hero. The man stopped a runaway, unmanned Fuel Truck from rolling into planes and other property at the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport this past Tuesday.

Airline employee was about to guide a plane away from the gate

Fox News reported that Carbone was in the process of guiding a plane away from its gate at Concourse C at the airport when he spotted the runaway fuel truck, with no driver, rolling backwards down a ramp towards the gate.

Without thinking twice, the airline employee ran after the fuel truck, jumping into the vehicle to step on the brakes, potentially preventing a huge explosion should it have hit an airplane or other airport property.

Carbone instantly went into action to stop the fuel truck

Carbone told the New York Daily News that as soon as he spotted the truck, he dropped the wand he was using to walk the wing with and headed off after the fuel truck. Carbone said he jumped in and then stepped on the brake before the truck could crash into the terminal or a plane. Surveillance video of the incident shows Carbone jumping into the vehicle when it was within around 50 yards of colliding with other vehicles, planes or airport personnel.

Aviation consultant says a fuel truck is ‘basically a bomb’

Fox 4 spoke to Denny Kelly, an aviation consultant, who told them a fuel truck is “basically a bomb.” Kelly said the truck has a tank on the back filled with thousands of gallons of gasoline, which is highly volatile. According to Kelly, Carbone did exactly the right thing. He said if Carbone hadn’t managed to stop the truck it could have easily run into a plane full of passengers. Kelly then went on to call Carbone a hero for what he did, as it could have led to a major disaster.

Airline applauds their employee’s actions

American Airlines applauded their employee’s quick thinking and swift action to prevent injury to airport personnel and damage to planes and other airport property at what is their largest hub.

The airline did say an investigation is currently underway and the fuel vendor is investigating how the fuel truck could have ended up rolling back.

As for Carbone, he said the incident was “scary,” but he added that he is thankful no one was hurt in the incident. He said his immediate instincts were to run after the fuel truck in an attempt to stop it and that is exactly what he did.

The surveillance video showing Carbone’s quick actions is included below.