C208 captain reports a near ground collision with an airport vehicle that is supervising the snow pl...

Narrative:

While taxiing in to our ramp in poor visibility conditions; just across the alpha bridge while on alpha moving towards our gate; an airport maintenance (yellow & black) truck X failed to see us and drove straight towards us. By the time he saw us and slammed on the brakes; he came to a skidding stop not more than 5 feet from the propeller. I was only a split second away from an emergency shutdown. Ground controllers were informed and I was requested to contact the tower and report the issue on a recorded line. Note; our ground personnel at ord witnessed the event as well.due to the restricted visibility from the ice on the windshield from the landing; I did not see the truck until it was in my forward field of view (fov)! Though my first officer noticed the vehicle failing to stop; and informed me before the truck came into my fov. It looked like the vehicle was performing some sort of support for ramp deicing and the driver's head was turned towards the other snow plows instead of monitoring where they were going. When they slammed on the brakes; we were already at a stop; my hand was on the condition lever for an emergency shutdown.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: C208 Captain reports a near ground collision with an airport vehicle that is supervising the snow plows but apparently not looking ahead. The C208 had stopped and was about to shut down the engine when the truck driver noticed the aircraft and stopped quickly.

Narrative: While taxiing in to our ramp in poor visibility conditions; just across the alpha bridge while on alpha moving towards our gate; An airport Maintenance (Yellow & Black) truck X failed to see us and drove straight towards us. By the time he saw us and slammed on the brakes; he came to a skidding stop not more than 5 feet from the propeller. I was only a split second away from an emergency shutdown. Ground controllers were informed and I was requested to contact the tower and report the issue on a recorded line. Note; our ground personnel at ORD witnessed the event as well.Due to the restricted visibility from the ice on the windshield from the landing; I did not see the truck until it was in my Forward Field of view (FOV)! though my first officer noticed the vehicle failing to stop; and informed me before the truck came into my FOV. It looked like the vehicle was performing some sort of support for ramp deicing and the driver's head was turned towards the other snow plows instead of monitoring where they were going. When they slammed on the brakes; we were already at a stop; my hand was on the condition lever for an emergency shutdown.

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.

Attributes
ACN	1238028
Time
Date	201502
Place
Locale Reference	ORD.Airport
State Reference	IL
Environment
Flight Conditions	IMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Caravan 208B
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 135
Flight Phase	Taxi
Route In Use	Other Taxi way alpha
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Commercial Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Instrument
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 240 Flight Crew Total 2500 Flight Crew Type 1200
Events
Anomaly	Conflict Ground Conflict Critical Ground Event / Encounter Vehicle
Miss Distance	Horizontal 5

C208 captain reports a near ground collision with an airport vehicle that is supervising the snow plows but apparently not looking ahead. The C208 had stopped and was about to shut down the engine when the truck driver noticed the aircraft and stopped quickly.