New Delhi: The national carrier Air India faced the consequences of not having enough crew members as a flyer in the plane opened a door. This resulted in the escape raft falling out just before a Dreamliner was pushed back for takeoff at Moscow.
It would have caused serious injuries and damages to personnel and vehicles on the ground if the flyer had fallen onto the aerobridge. The slide would have inflated within seconds with much speed and force could have increased engineering expenses on the debt-ridden airline.
According to a report published in leading English daily, the incident took place minutes before the scheduled 8.30am (Moscow time) departure of AI's Moscow-Delhi flight. A passenger, seated on 14A, had returned from one of the washrooms and was on his way to his seat. "I was about to take my seat when I heard a staffer knocking on the window asking to open the door. So I opened the door without realizing that I shouldn't have opened it," said the passenger in his statement to the airline.
Source said,"As the door opened, there was a sudden hissing sound, followed by a loud thud, and that was when the flight attendants noticed the passenger's errant behaviour. It was too late to stop him." The escape slide raft fell onto the aerobridge, and an engineering team had to be called to detach it from the aircraft.
Air India did not comment on the incident. Its spokesperson sought time to respond.
The doors of an aircraft are armed before it is pushed back for departure but can be easily opened by passengers as is expected to be done during an emergency situation on the ground. When an armed door is opened, the emergency evacuation slide which is packed and held within the door structure falls out. If the packed slide gets a drop of over two feet, it vigorously inflates and within ten seconds is ready to be used for evacuation.
The minimum number of cabin crew members depends on the number of seats and doors in an aircraft and the duration of flight.
According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation's norms, since the Dreamliner aircraft had eight doors and the flight's duration was over six hours, a minimum of nine cabin crew members should have been mandatorily rostered for the flight. "But AI had posted only seven of them. When the incident took place, the flight attendants were scouting around ensuring that all overhead bins were closed, window panes open and seats left in upright position, etc," said the source.
The flight left after a two-hour delay and the affected door was deemed "inoperative". Since the Dreamliner was not packed to capacity, the airline was not forced to offload passengers. Else, to fly with one inoperative door, the airline would have been forced to offload 50 passengers. This is so because safety norms lay down a 90-second deadline for evacuation of the entire aircraft even when only half the number of emergency exits are available. That is also one of the reasons why safety norms dictate that every emergency exit should be manned by at least one cabin crew member.
