Qantas’ long-haul flight was delayed when emergency slide accidentally triggered at the gate after a flight crew member “moved the handle”
- Emergency slide ejected moments before takeoff
- Flight from LAX to Sydney delayed by three hours
A crew member accidentally activated a safety mechanism on a Qantas flight moments before takeoff, causing a frustrating three-hour delay for passengers.
Passengers were forced to exit the A380 leaving Los Angeles for Sydney at around 10:30pm Sunday after a crew member accidentally ejected one of the plane’s 14 emergency slides by “shaking” a handle. of security.
According to FlightAware, the flight was delayed just under three hours, finally leaving at 1:24 a.m. and arriving in Sydney at 11:17 a.m. Wednesday.
One of the passengers told Daily Mail Australia that the delay occurred after the plane moved away from the gate and was on the runway about to take off.
“There was an indication that the door was not locked,” the passenger said.
They told me that the crew member backed off and shook the handle, and the slide came off.
An emergency slide was accidentally ejected from a Qantas flight (pictured) moments before it was due to take off from LAX to Sydney, causing a three-hour delay on Sunday night.
All passengers on board awaited the delay in the Qantas lounge at Los Angeles airport while engineers removed the inflatable slide.
The airline is investigating the circumstances that led to the accidental deployment.
The mishap comes just four days after Qantas announced it will create some 2,000 jobs over the next 18 months for cabin crew, pilots, engineers and other operations positions.
Australia’s national airline expects to introduce 8,500 new jobs to the aviation industry over the next 10 years in order to progressively increase its aircraft fleet to meet travel demand.
Qantas currently has 23,500 employees and projects that number to grow to 32,000 by 2033 to support the expected delivery of 299 narrow-body and 12 wide-body aircraft over the same period.
According to a passenger, a crew member was conducting a safety check and ‘shaked’ a handle which caused the slide to inflate all the way to the runway (Qantas staff pictured)
Two weeks ago, Qantas posted an interim underlying pre-tax profit of $1.43 billion in its first return to profitability since the Covid-19 pandemic halted travel in 2020.
Statutory net profit for the six months to June 30 was $1 billion, compared with a net loss of $456 million a year earlier.
The profit turnaround was achieved despite a 65 percent increase in fuel costs during the halving.
Qantas said domestic flight levels averaged 94 percent of pre-pandemic levels, while international capacity also doubled to 60 percent.
