A British Airways flight departing London’s Heathrow Airport for Washington was delayed for nearly three hours after a crew member accidentally opened an aircraft door and deployed the emergency slide just moments before takeoff, causing an estimated $136,000 in damages.
The aircraft was carrying approximately 336 passengers when the incident occurred shortly before departure. According to reports, a flight attendant who was only on his second flight on the job mistakenly believed he had been instructed to open the door, triggering the deployment of the emergency slide and bringing the flight to a halt.
As a precaution, the airline called emergency services to the aircraft. Passengers reportedly remained stuck onboard for close to three hours before finally being allowed to disembark, according to the British newspaper the Daily Mail.
A source described the incident as “a foolish mistake,” explaining that the crew member accidentally opened the door, activated the emergency slide, and completely disrupted the flight. The mishap reportedly caused major operational losses for the airline in addition to the lengthy inconvenience suffered by passengers waiting on the tarmac.
A spokesperson for British Airways said, “We apologized to customers for the delay to their journey, and our teams worked to get them to their destination as quickly as possible.”
The incident is not the first of its kind involving the airline. Last year, a similar mishap took place on a Heathrow-to-Brussels flight after an emergency slide was deployed on an Airbus A321 aircraft, forcing the cancellation of the flight and leaving passengers delayed for roughly three hours until a replacement plane was arranged.
Another similar mistake occurred in February 2024, when a captain preparing a flight to Romania accidentally activated an emergency slide while handing paperwork to crew members after failing to properly deactivate the aircraft’s door system. That incident reportedly caused damages estimated at approximately $50,000.
{Matzav.com}
