British Airways’ flight from Cape Town to London was canceled this evening for an unusual reason.
Doorless British Airways Boeing 777 in South Africa
A British Airways Boeing 777-200ER lost a door between flights at Cape Town Airport (CPT) today. The 21 year old plane, which has the registration code G-YMMH, flew from London to Cape Town on Tuesday evening, landing in Cape Town early Wednesday morning.
Unfortunately upon arrival things didn’t exactly go as planned, as the aircraft’s second door on the left was ripped off. Below are some images of the damage — as you can see, the door was simply placed in the jet bridge after it disconnected.
What went wrong? While I haven’t received official confirmation, it’s my understanding that this happened after arriving passengers deplaned, and before the plane was brought to a remote parking stand for the day. I think it’s safe to assume that this incident involves the operation of the jet bridge, since that’s what’s most likely to rip off the door. Whether there was a malfunction or it was user error remains to be seen.
The return flight to London was canceled
The plane was supposed to sit at Cape Town Airport all day, and then operate an overnight flight back to London Heathrow (LHR), departing at 9:15PM with the flight number BA42. As you’d expect, that flight was canceled, because I imagine fixing this will take more than a few hours. While there’s a lot in the airline industry that can be fixed with duct tape, this (hopefully) isn’t one of those things.
While incidents like this are extremely rare, they’re not unheard of. In the past we’ve seen doors ripped off of Boeing 777s operated by American Airlines, Emirates Airline, and Singapore Airlines.
Bottom line
A British Airways Boeing 777 had one of its door ripped off in Cape Town today. This happened after passengers deplaned, and it’s rumored that this involved the jet bridge and was the fault of the ground crew (though we don’t know much beyond that). I’m curious to see when this plane is flying again.
Source: onemileatatime.com