Narrative:

This is my second [report] for same situation only one hour after the first. Different flight and aircraft. After arrival and with the aircraft stopped; the white paint spiral on the engine inlet spinner was not visible. We were just audited and this is one of the things that we failed on; however; this practice is unsafe in its entirety. As the marshaller of the aircraft; I am about 100 feet from the engines and the wing walkers are 15 feet away and they have a much better chance of seeing; and hearing the engine from that distance than I do from the distance that I am. Sometimes it is extremely hard; if not impossible to see the engine fan blades; especially at night or in inclement weather. Furthermore; many of our aircraft have faded; chipped; or missing paint from the spinner; making the spirals nonexistent. I don't have any special training to know that the engines have spooled down to a sufficient speed nor do I have any special equipment to measure the RPM's of the spooling down engine. Standing that far away while having to get the jet bridge up to the aircraft; get the nose gear chocked; and keep the wands crossed until we get the chocks in; is a lot of tasks to accomplish before trying to see if it is safe for the wing walkers to approach the aircraft. It's very uncomfortable having the expectations and safety of a fellow coworker in my hands when there is no way of me being able to see or fulfill that obligation when I cannot see the fan blades; the spiral is worn off; and we are tasked with doing so many things at that very limited yet critical time.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier ground personnel reported paint on the engine inlet spinner was chipped; faded; or nonexistent. Ground personnel could not determine if the engine had stopped spinning or not.

Narrative: This is my second [report] for same situation only one hour after the first. Different flight and aircraft. After arrival and with the aircraft stopped; the white paint spiral on the engine inlet spinner was not visible. We were just audited and this is one of the things that we failed on; however; this practice is unsafe in its entirety. As the marshaller of the aircraft; I am about 100 feet from the engines and the wing walkers are 15 feet away and they have a much better chance of seeing; and hearing the engine from that distance than I do from the distance that I am. Sometimes it is extremely hard; if not impossible to see the engine fan blades; especially at night or in inclement weather. Furthermore; many of our aircraft have faded; chipped; or missing paint from the spinner; making the spirals nonexistent. I don't have any special training to know that the engines have spooled down to a sufficient speed nor do I have any special equipment to measure the RPM's of the spooling down engine. Standing that far away while having to get the jet bridge up to the aircraft; get the nose gear chocked; and keep the wands crossed until we get the chocks in; is a lot of tasks to accomplish before trying to see if it is safe for the wing walkers to approach the aircraft. It's very uncomfortable having the expectations and safety of a fellow coworker in my hands when there is no way of me being able to see or fulfill that obligation when I cannot see the fan blades; the spiral is worn off; and we are tasked with doing so many things at that very limited yet critical time.

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.