A BUNGLING cabin crew member cost British Airways £100,000 when they activated an aircraft escape slide by mistake.
The expensive gaffe is the latest in a string of similar bungles by crew.
A snap of Monday’s incident shared with The Sun shows the inflatable chute deployed from the ’s front door in Seattle, US.
More than 250 passengers were stuck on the stricken plane until workers removed the slide so a walkway could be attached.
The return evening flight to was delayed by nearly 90 minutes as a result.
A source said: “A hapless crew member did the unthinkable and deployed the emergency chute.
“It’s a startling error and costs six figures to fix, examine and restore the chute, notwithstanding missed take-off and landing slots and knock-on issues.
“The only thing as puzzling as this happening is why it seems to happen so frequently?”
Last month we told how a senior BA cabin crew member from Montreal in Canada.
The Heathrow flight was delayed by three hours.
In January a flight to Brussels was cancelled after a similar blunder. And last year BA crew activated slides by accident in Mumbai, India, and before flights to Nigeria and Texas.
Staff are given extensive training to prevent such incidents
BA said of the latest incident: “We apologised for the delay.”
