Bungling BA crew member accidentally activates jet’s emergency slides delaying 100s & costing airline huge sum
A BUNGLING crew member activated a jet’s emergency slide by mistake, putting it out of service and delaying hundreds of passengers.
The gaffe, on a BA flight, would have cost the airline £100,000.
The Airbus A321 was grounded and the flight from London Heathrow to Brussels cancelled following Monday morning’s blunder.
Passengers endured a three-hour wait while another jet was found to take them to Belgium.
A source said: “The crew member wasn’t thinking and made the most basic of errors by deploying the emergency slide while on the ground at Heathrow.
“It’s a minimum £100,000 mistake and knocked out services for the rest of the day.
“This error is not easy to achieve.
“It really beggar’s belief and staff are trained to know the basics.”
British Airways said: “We apologised to customers for the delay and our teams worked hard to arrange a replacement aircraft so customers were able to travel with us as planned.”
Last year, a BA flight was grounded just before take-off from Heathrow to Bucharest after the captain activated his jet’s emergency slide.
The Sun also told how a bungling steward had a first day to forget when he activated the emergency slide as his plane taxied to the runway.
He was on his debut flight on a Boeing 777 and accidentally opened an emergency door on the service from Heathrow to Nigeria.