A flight attendant working for Finnair fell 3 and a half metres from the open door of an Airbus A380 when the mobile boarding stairs at the rear of the plane were detached without warning.
The flight attendant was seriously hurt, and had to be taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.
Accident investigators have released their findings into the Jan 13 incident.
Passengers on the Finnair AY450 domestic flight from Oulu to Helsinki had disembarked via the mobile boarding stairs and were waiting in bus. A flight attendant gave the bus driver the "OK" sign and then closed the rear door to keep the heat in.
The bus would normally drive away after receiving the OK sign, but in this case it was instructed to wait as a nearby aircraft was taxiing past.
Seeing that the bus was not departing and that the mobile stairs were still there, a crew member on board checked with the other members that the OK sign had actually been given. Another crew member then opened the rear door intending to signal to the driver, not realising that the stairs had actually been moved 1.5 metres away from the plane. When she opened the door, she fell through the gap onto the tarmac below.
She sustained a broken collarbone, broken ribs and cuts to her head which required stitches.
The accident investigation made several conclusions, relating to the lack of communication between the cabin crew and also the lack of clear responsibilities for each crew member which allowed the incident to occur. Finnair has been asked to give further training to staff about each of their responsibilities.
Finnair released a statement at the time of the incident:
“On Finnair flight AY450 from Oulu to Helsinki 13 January a crew member was involved in a serious occupational accident. The crew member fell from the aircraft back door to the station platform where aircraft was parked. The employee was seriously injured and transported to a hospital."
“This is a rare and very unfortunate event. For privacy reasons we cannot comment further, however, the Safety Investigation Authority is conducting an independent investigation. Finnair takes all occupational safety issues seriously and will investigate the events leading to this occurrence to ensure this will not happen again.”
Finnair has not yet commented on the findings of the investigation.