The Samsic Ramp Agent Killed in a Montreal Pushback

Oscar Robayo, 39, died after a French bee Airbus A350 struck him during pushback at Montreal-Trudeau Airport on August 24. He was a Samsic ramp agent, not an airline employee and not airport staff. A federal labour probe is now testing whether that contractor met its safety duties.

Emergency crews were called at about 7:30 p.m. ET, an hour and a half after the Paris-Orly departure had been set for 6 p.m. The jet was French bee flight BF5761. Passengers felt the jolt. Some watched it live on a belly camera.

The Nose Wheel Caught His Foot During Pushback

Peter Tsoukalas, a representative of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said Robayo was helping push the widebody off its stand when his foot was caught and the nose wheel struck him. Tsoukalas, who is taking part in the inquiry, called it a “chain of events” and would not spell out that chain while the file is open.

Montreal police said the aircraft was reversing when it hit him. He was taken to hospital in critical condition and died of his injuries. Aéroports de Montréal confirmed the death on the morning of August 25. Police also said they are not treating the case as a crime.

French bee, in a statement dated 24 August, said the accident involved the aircraft and a pushback vehicle during ground handling before a Paris-Orly departure. Passengers and crew on board were unharmed, the airline said, and the precise sequence had not been established.

THE NIGHT ON THE YUL APRON

1. August 24, 2026, 6:00 p.m. ET: BF5761 is scheduled to leave Montreal for Paris-Orly.
2. August 24, about 7:30 p.m. ET: Airport emergency measures go out after a worker is struck during pushback.
3. August 24, evening: French bee confirms a serious ground accident and says passengers and crew are safe.
4. August 25, morning: ADM confirms a Samsic employee has died. The Transportation Safety Board sends a team. The federal Labour Program opens a file on Samsic Assistance Canada Inc. Quebec coroner Amélie Lavigne is assigned.
5. August 26, 2:00 p.m.: The airport community holds a minute of silence at Gate 67.

The flight had already been held from the day before. Pushback started late. None of that, on its own, explains why a station attendant ended up under a nose wheel.

He Worked for Samsic, Not French Bee

Robayo had been a station attendant, the union’s word for a ramp worker, with Samsic since March 2025. Samsic also handles bags and passenger work at YUL. ADM’s own payroll is separate. The airport authority says it employs 625 people across Montréal-Trudeau, Montréal-Mirabel and head office. He was not on that list.

Yves Beauchamp, president and chief executive of ADM, called the death the loss of a member of our airport community and said the authority would say nothing more out of respect for the family. Questions, ADM said, should go to the agencies running the probes. That is the language of a landlord. It is not the language of an employer of record.

Samsic Airport sells ramp and flight operation services to airlines, and lists 33 hubs and 8,000 employees on its public site. Samsic Assistance Canada Inc. is the name Employment and Social Development Canada put on the labour file. French bee operates the jet. ADM runs the field. The man under the wheel drew a Samsic cheque.

WHO STOOD WHERE AFTER THE IMPACT

Samsic did not put out a public statement on August 25 when reporters asked. The split on that table is why a death on a French jet, on ADM concrete, became a labour case against a third company.

A Headset, a Tug and Three Jobs on the Tarmac

Tsoukalas walked through a normal pushback. People walk the wings so the jet stays clear of gear and buildings. One person drives the tug that shoves the aircraft off the stand. Another talks to the cockpit on a headset. “It’s a very dangerous job,” he said. “You’re dealing with a lot of elements, a lot of factors. Heavy equipment, airplanes.” Then: “One mistake can cause you immediate danger or damage or death, even.”

JOBS BESIDE A MOVING NOSE GEAR

• Wing walkers: They stay with the wings and keep the fuselage clear of trucks, bridges and other aircraft.
• Tug driver: They drive the pushback vehicle that moves the jet off the gate.
• Headset agent: They talk to the pilots, pass instructions to the driver, and work close to the nose gear.

Michel Richer, the IAM’s Quebec coordinator, said the worker was close to the front wheel, too close. Colleagues speaking later described a headset lead too short to keep a marshaller away from that wheel. Investigators have not adopted that account. The union, asked whether it had already flagged pushback staffing or training at Samsic, did not name a prior complaint.

The danger is not unique to YUL. NASA’s aviation safety program has published confidential ramp safety reports in which a pushback starts while a driver is still climbing onto the tug, and in which a jet rolls on an early brake release with chocks still in place. Those files are from other airports and other nights. They show how little room a headset agent has once the wheels move.

Three Probes Opened on One Contractor

The Transportation Safety Board sent investigators on August 25 to reconstruct the pushback. TSB language relayed the same day said a ground crew member on the apron became trapped under an aircraft wheel during pushback on the movement area and was fatally injured. The board had not published a public sequence of events in the weeks after August 24.

The Labour Program opened a separate file under the Canada Labour Code on Samsic Assistance Canada Inc. Maja Stefanovska, speaking for ESDC, said the probe will test whether the employer met its duty to protect employees at work, and that the Code keeps the evidence inside the workplace parties. That confidentiality is why so little has come out of the labour side.

Airports and airlines sit inside Part II of the Canada Labour Code, which tells an employer to protect staff at work and also non-employees, including contractors, who are let onto the site. ESDC named Samsic, not ADM and not French bee. Part II still leaves a live question about who owed Robayo a safe place to stand on that apron.

Federal Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said Transport Canada would appoint a departmental observer so he could follow the TSB work, and sent condolences to the family. That observer is not a fourth probe. Quebec’s coroner can later issue recommendations meant to stop a similar death. Montreal police have already stepped back.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The worker: Oscar Robayo, 39, Samsic station attendant since March 2025, IAM member.
• The movement: Pushback of a French bee Airbus A350 on BF5761, emergency call about 7:30 p.m. ET on August 24.
• The union account: Foot caught, struck by the nose wheel, described as a chain of events.
• The airline account: Accident involved the aircraft and a pushback vehicle; passengers and crew unharmed.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The full sequence: TSB has not issued a public reconstruction of who moved, who spoke, and when the tug pushed.
• The headset lead: Worker accounts of a missing extension have not been adopted by the union on the record or by investigators.
• Fault: No finding yet on equipment, staffing, surface conditions, or a simple misstep.

Those blanks are the story now. The public file is a name, a contractor, and three agencies that do not share a deadline.

The Seatback Camera Ran for 30 Seconds

Matthieu Douvenou was on the Paris-bound cabin and watching the tarmac on his seatback screen. He is still in Montreal. He was due back at work in France and has not gone.

I could see the nose landing gear. And then all of a sudden, it was as if the tarmac worker had stumbled, and then at that moment, the plane backed up and we felt the shock.

Matthieu Douvenou, passenger on BF5761

“I understood very quickly that something very serious had happened,” he said. On board, people felt a thud and a shock wave as the aircraft lifted slightly. One passenger screamed. Another said she was a nurse and asked if she could help. Douvenou told people around him to stay calm so children would not panic. The crew cut the camera after about 30 seconds.

“I still have the images running through my head,” he said. “Normally I’m not afraid of flying, but right now I’m not very calm.” He has had trouble sleeping and said he would take psychological help if it was offered. ADM said it put support in place for employees and passengers who saw the accident. The belly feed is a passenger gimmick until it is a death, and then it is evidence and trauma in the same loop.

What the Labour File Has to Answer

The TSB can map the geometry: tug angle, brake release, headset position, how far a person stood from a turning nose wheel. The coroner can say what killed him. Only the labour file is built to ask whether Samsic gave him the kit, the staffing and the stop-work right that Part II requires.

A headset without enough cable puts a marshaller beside the gear. If he slips on wet pavement, the tire is already there. That is the mechanical fact of the job, whether or not it is the fact of this night. French bee’s own first statement put a pushback vehicle in the same sentence as the aircraft, which means the tug is in the frame too. Those two pictures can both be true. They can also pull apart once investigators sync the radio tape with the belly video.

The quieter fight is money and duty. When a contractor’s worker dies under a customer’s jet on an airport’s pavement, families and insurers spend years asking who was the employer in practice. ESDC has already picked a legal target. That does not settle who writes a cheque, and it does not settle whether ADM’s duty to people allowed onto the airfield ever gets tested. The conversation that lasted past the first news cycle was that question, not the cabin scream.

Colleagues Waited Overnight for Investigators

Several of Robayo’s coworkers were interviewed and stayed at the airport overnight, Tsoukalas said. “He was a really good worker. He was a very good team player.” The union’s ask is narrow and hard: a system that would not let this incident happen again, for IAM members or anyone else on the field.

We want a system in place that would never allow anybody else, whether it’s our members or any other employee working at the airport, to ever replicate or duplicate the same incident.

Peter Tsoukalas, IAM representative

On August 26 the airport asked the community to gather at Gate 67.

In honour of Mr. Oscar Robayo, who tragically passed away on Monday, we will observe a minute of silence this afternoon at 2:00 p.m. Members of the airport community who wish to pay their respects are invited to gather at Gate 67.

— YUL Aéroport international Montréal-Trudeau (@yulaeroport) August 26, 2026

The minute of silence was at 2:00 p.m. The probes did not pause with it. Robayo was 39, on a contractor’s ramp, under a nose wheel that passengers watched turn on a seatback screen. The labour file still has to say whether Samsic kept him far enough from that wheel.