Bungling BA crew member accidentally activates jet’s emergency slides delaying 100s & costing airline huge sum
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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.
![[Emergency slide deployed on a British Airways plane at London Heathrow.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/000-gaffe-left-plane-service-963507740.jpg?strip=all&w=478)
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.
![[British Airways Airbus A321-200 on approach.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/a321-200-passenger-aeroplane-approach-496765295.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
“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.
