Narrative:

As [the] flight landed the ramp was closed. The individual that was working in operations gets on the radio and says to the supervisor 'I know the ramp is closed but can we send any one out to go park [the] flight?' the supervisor was smart enough not to send any one out there. A few minutes later he gets on the radio and say 'I'm going to open up the ramp for 5 minutes so can we park this plane.' once the ramp was opened up I myself go outside to set up my gate on for the other arriving flight. As soon as I go outside there is back to back lighting bolts that strike directly above us. Then a few more off into the distance. I report it over the radio. Operations gets back on and says the storm is 5 miles out. I understand that he is looking at a radar but being right under it are two completely different things. Operations continued to keep the ramp open after myself and another employee (who was on a completely different gate in another zone) reported lighting strikes. Personally I do not feel safe working under all that lightning. He closed the ramp after the flight was parked at the gate. Now he is opening and closing the gate like every 5 to 10 minutes.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Ramp worker reported their Supervisor made them temporarily open a closed ramp to park an airplane during a period of lightning strikes.

Narrative: As [the] Flight landed the ramp was closed. The individual that was working in Operations gets on the radio and says to the Supervisor 'I know the ramp is closed but can we send any one out to go park [the] Flight?' The supervisor was smart enough not to send any one out there. A few minutes later he gets on the radio and say 'I'm going to open up the ramp for 5 minutes so can we park this plane.' Once the ramp was opened up I myself go outside to set up my gate on for the other arriving flight. As soon as I go outside there is back to back lighting bolts that strike directly above us. Then a few more off into the distance. I report it over the radio. Operations gets back on and says the storm is 5 miles out. I understand that he is looking at a radar but being right under it are two completely different things. Operations continued to keep the ramp open after myself and another employee (who was on a completely different gate in another zone) reported lighting strikes. Personally I do not feel safe working under all that lightning. He closed the ramp after the flight was parked at the gate. Now he is opening and closing the gate like every 5 to 10 minutes.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.