British Airways stewardess makes huge blunder – costing airline £50k and forcing her to fly home as a passenger in shame
A BRITISH Airways stewardess has made a huge blunder – costing the airline £50k and forcing her to fly home as a passenger in shame.
The airline is reviewing its safety standards after an emergency slide was deployed on touchdown – the third embarrassing, £50,000-a-pop error in weeks.
The inflatable exit was engaged after a packed jet from Heathrow touched down in Madrid.
Shocked staff told how it was “luck” the slide did not hit a member of ground staff on the tarmac as the plane reached the stand in Spain.
Any airport worker caught by the slide would have been killed “instantly”.
A photo shared with The Sun showed Flight BA460 surrounded by police and airport vehicles after the chute had been deployed.
The return service, BA461, was delayed by more than three hours.
The slide was stowed in the Airbus A320’s hold, and BA was forced to run a reduced service back to the UK.
Passenger John MacIntyre hit out: “So my flight from Madrid to Heathrow looks like it isn’t leaving at all or may leave with limited passengers.
“This is due to the emergency slide being ‘accidentally’ deployed on arrival.
“I was hoping to go home.”
The costly error was made by a crew member who had been flying with the airline for over a year, but only just returned to service after sick leave.
She was ‘stood down’ and flown back to the UK as a passenger.
On arrival at Heathrow she was summoned to a meeting with BA’s senior safety team.
SLIPPERY SLOPE
Tuesday afternoon’s incident was the third to humiliate BA bosses this year.
Previously, deploying an emergency slide in error was incredibly rare.
Embarrassed bosses are reviewing safety standards, in keeping with any major and unscheduled flight incident.
Crew will have the process of opening doors – and not slides – “emphasised”, insiders said.
A BA source added: “Learnings will be taken from what happened.”
One crew insider told The Sun: “Deploying an emergency slide is a complete ‘no no’.
“It is incredibly dangerous, and standards around this are the most basic which recruits receive.
“After three recent incidents there is clearly something seriously wrong.
“It costs around £50,000 a time in repairing the deployed slide and through missed take-off and landing slots.
“More training will hammer home what needs to be known about the emergency slide. It has been an awkward time for BA.”
It is incredibly dangerous, and standards around this are the most basic which recruits receive.”
Crew insider
BA told The Sun of the Madrid slide error: “We’ve apologised to customers for the delay and made sure they were able to continue their journey as soon as possible.”
The Sun told how earlier this month a BA stewardess accidentally activated the emergency slide as her plane taxied to the runway – costing the airline £50,000 and delaying passengers for more than five hours.
The crew member was on their debut flight on an Airbus A350 and accidentally opened an emergency door.
The aircraft had just pushed back from the stand at Heathrow and was moments from take-off to Austin, Texas when disaster struck.
The exact same thing happened prior to a new stewardess on a BA flight to Lagos in January.