EMB ERJ 170/175 ER/LR
Maintenance Powerplant; Maintenance Airframe
Distraction; Time Pressure; Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Person / Animal / Bird
Flight Crew Took Evasive Action; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft; Human Factors
Lead mechanic and I entered the aircraft to complete the procedure which included engine running procedure. I was instructed from lead mechanic to stay away from the engine; but go around the engine while it is running. Lead mechanic was inside of flight deck with crew; and I was outside of aircraft underneath the belly fairing area to complete the procedure. I needed additional tools to complete my job; I was running across in front of Engine #1 to grab my tools; totally forgot both engines were running; I was almost sucked into the engine; but I was holding onto the engine inlet about 30sec my I.D (airport authority I.D. and company I.D) and pens were sucked into the engine.  Because this aircraft got pushed back and delayed couple of times due to lack of resources (Air Cart; No crew available); I wanted to get my job done correctly and as soon as possible. Always know what is happening surrounding you and if there were more adequate staffs to help us out. This event could've been avoided.
Upon arriving in ZZZ my crew and I were swapped into an aircraft which was down for maintenance. Upon receiving our dispatch release I noted that the aircraft had MELs 38-10-00-1 for the potable water system; 49-00-00-1 for the APU and 36-10-01-1 for the cross bleed valve. There was also a note in the remarks that maintenance would need to be present to open and close the cross bleed valve manually. I called maintenance control and confirmed that this was going to be the procedure preformed in order for us to take a plane full of passengers to ZZZ1 where the cross bleed valve would then be changed out. We were informed by the gate that an FAA Maintenance Inspector was going to be jumpseating with us as well. I informed the ground crew and the gate agent that we would be boarding the passengers and loading the bags normally. Then once that was done we would be keeping the jetway on the aircraft so that the maintenance crew could get on and off the plane and we could use the jetway GPU. We would be starting the right engine #2 with the ground air cart. Once the #2 engine was started we would disconnect the air cart and move it a safe distance away. Then we would increase the power on the #2 engine and the maintenance crew would open the cross bleed manually so that we could start the left engine #1. Then maintenance would finish their logbook entries and we would close up; push back and go. Once everyone was in their places (the passengers on board; the flight attendants at their stations; the gate agent in the jetway; the FAA milling about the forward galley; one ramper on the headset; one or more rampers working the air cart and keeping the area clear; one maintenance guy under belly of the plane at the cross bleed valve; one maintenance guy in the cockpit reading off the procedure; and the First Officer (FO) and I in our seats with our headsets half way on) we were ready to try to start the engines. We called the ramp tower and got permission to start our engines at the gate with a power up of about 40%. We managed to get the #2 engine started but got an engine #2 bleed valve fail EICAS message and an X on the ECS MFD page. We cycled the #2 bleed on and off and got the X on the ECS page to go away but the EICAS message remained. Maintenance suggested we power down the aircraft completely and try again after a reset. After resetting we had to wait twenty minutes to get our air cart back since it had been taken for another aircrafts use. Once we were prepared again we started the #2 engine and did not get any bleed #2 fail messages. We then successfully performed the cross bleed start and had both engines back running at idle thrust. At this point the maintenance guy left the cockpit and about 20 seconds later we heard a loud rattle and banging and the sound of the engines changed a bit. Immediately the ramper on the headset started yelling 'shut it down; shut it down'. The FO and I reached for the engine start/stop selectors at the same time. She turned off the #2 engine at about the same time I turned off the #1 engine. As the FO secured the shutdown of the aircraft I quickly jumped out of my seat and rushed into the jetway and down onto the ramp. It was there that I found several rampers and both maintenance guys clustered around the front of the #1 engine. I asked what had happened and was told that the maintenance guy who had been operating the cross bleed valve under the aircraft had forgotten that both engines were running and that he had walked right in front of the #1 engine. He had almost been sucked into the engine by the flow of air but had managed to stop himself by grabbing hold of the engine cowling. His ID which had been on a lanyard around his neck had been sucked into the engine and that was source of the strange noise we had heard inside of the aircraft. I made sure that our maintenance guy was 100% ok and then I went back up into the jetway. I told the gate agent there that we needed to deplane the passengers right away. Once the passengers were off I called dispatch and maintenance control and informed them of what had happened. I also informed maintenance control that I had entered a discrepancy for the FOD ingestion in the #1 engine and the deactivation of the CVR because of the NTSB reportable incident. We were soon transferred to another aircraft for our flight. The complicated and nonstandard maintenance procedure coupled with a relatively new maintenance employee and his lapse in concentration lead to this almost tragic event.
A Maintenance Technician narrowly avoided serious injury while darting in front of a running engine to retrieve tools during a maintenance procedure. Loose items from his pockets were ingested by the engine.