I flew in/out of Bangor last summer.
Comparing it to Sky Harbor is like comparing a watermelon to a raisin! The rental car return is right in front of the entrance to the terminal. Our flight out was delayed for hours, so I spent some time there. You don't even get to go to the gate until your flight is called and you then allowed to go through security.
Private planes are usually directed to a totally separate area from commercial planes. Even here, where I live, we have a relatively small airport( one security pass through that allows the passenger to go to one of two concourses with 5 gates on each side), the private planes fly out of a totally separate terminal. Regardless of plane size, the private planes are parked at that terminal, all passengers go through that terminal - which is quite nice, and no TSA, or any other type of security checks, just a "concierge desk" with an attendent who says hello, and offices to file flight plans.
I wasn't trying to compare BGR to Sky Harbor when I brought it up, ma'am. My intention was to show that even at the 5th busiest airport in the country, a ground controller's job is to communicate with and coordinate the ground movements of the airplanes at the airport; not the service equipment.
I'm a private pilot myself, Deb so I am very familiar with your description of the "goings on" at the GA terminal at an airport. I went back to the BGR website and copied over the airport diagram so I could explain things a little better.
I bounded the ramp area surrounding the commercial and service ramps at BGR in yellow. Most likely, Travolta's plane would have been parked at the service ramp at the far east end of the terminal. In that same general area though, there is the fuel concession (Red Arrow) and the catering concession (Green Arrow). In an airport so busy that it has separate domestic and international terminals, as well as the general aviation terminal, fuel bowsers and catering trucks are coming in and out of that area all the time.
With that in mind, the last rule to remember is that an airport apron isn't a street: normal rules of right of way don't apply there. The airplane with clearance to taxi has absolute right of way, not pedestrians that may be wandering the ramp. Ground vehicles take whatever route works best to get them where they need to be, with the caveat that they watch for and yield to the aircraft. Especially at so busy an airport, pedestrians on the ramp aren't a normal occurance, and someone walking a dog on the ramp is so rare as to be considered absurd there, so it's not something a ground vehicle watches for.
I'll restate; Travolta or someone in his employ got careless in a busy area full of moving heavy machinery.
