Err, ehm! I’ve kept quiet on all this business of passengers opening doors of flights. However, this time, it was one of our own, at Air India which had to face the consequences.
As per the news, Air India’s Moscow flight was ready to take off to New Delhi, when they had a passenger seated in 14A open the door of the plane. Here is why:
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 statement given to the airline by the passenger who had opened the door.
The emergency chute deployed, and luckily the aircraft was still connected to the aerobridge, hence it did not have impact hard enough to make it deploy. It took the engineering team 2 hours to get everything sorted before the flight could take off again.
Apparently, the plane was being manned by 7 cabin crew members instead of the required 9, and the airline had to deem the door inoperative to be able to make the flight back without additional crew.
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Have never seen someone from outside come up to the window of an aircraft seat.
usually staff on jetbridge knock on door so cabin crew can tell them if door slide is armed or not before opening.
Not sure why door would have been closed if flight was not ready to leave and communicated with gate agents, though. Perhaps change in paperwork or trying to get a last minute customer on?
Agree with Ven above. Does the aerobridge even reach seat 14A?
How does a staff member knock on an aircraft window asking to open the door? Makes no sense.