Dash 8-300
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
Flight Crew Took Evasive Action; General Flight Cancelled / Delayed
Aircraft; Human Factors; Staffing; Company Policy
Our aircraft had no APU so we needed to start the number 2 engine prior to pushback with the GPU connected. An orange vest ramper kept asking to pull the GPU and I told him no. I asked for the ramp supervisor and told him we need to start 2 since we have no APU. He cleared the area and cleared us to start 2. At this point; gate to our right started sending passengers out to board their aircraft. Because of the close proximity; I aborted the start and signaled to him about the passengers and he sent another person to hold them at the door while we started. I proceeded to attempt to start number 2 again and noticed the Nh (high pressure compressor speed) climbing very slow. It's when I noticed the ramper had disconnected the GPU without my signaling. The battery start was clearly going to lead to a hot start so I aborted again and signaled to the supervisor to reconnect ground power. They reconnected ground power and we started number 2 without further incident. We wasted almost 15 minutes after door closure trying to get this situation organized so we could start the engine.No organization of gate area to provide a safe at gate engine start. Aborted starts multiple times for safety reasons. Better supervision and understanding of procedures is needed.
Dash 8 Captain reported terminating engine start twice due to miscommunication or lack of training of ground personnel causing a 15 minute delay.