The bathroom door of a Cathay Pacific plane fell off during take-off on a Monday flight to New York. As the metal slab came unhinged, passengers were considered lucky the incident happened when nobody was near the lavatory.
The door came off shortly into the 16-hour flight from Hong Kong to New York. Pictures shared on social media show a flight attendant, seated on the cabin crew chair, trying to hold the door in place with one hand, as well as several people trying to put it back into place later into the flight.
Despite the mishap, flight CX840, operated on an Airbus A350, landed at New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport as scheduled, around 5pm on Monday afternoon. Whether or not passengers were permitted to use the open lavatory during the flight is uncertain.
“The defect was rectified and our engineering team is performing a follow-up investigation. The safety of our customers and crew guides every decision we make. We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience caused,” the airline said in a statement.
The airline has launched an investigation into the cause of the incident. While the exact issues remain unclear, several engineers told South China Morning Post (SCMP) that, most likely, the door came off due to loose screws that were overlooked during the aircraft’s regular maintenance.
“Luckily it happened during take-off when passengers were all seated and no one was near the fallen door”, Lo Kok-keung, a retired veteran engineer from Polytechnic University told the Chinese newspaper. “If a passenger was using the toilet and the door fell inward, I believe the passenger would suffer both physically and mentally. He or she might feel very awkward and disturbed.”
Although the door is made of light-weight aluminium, it can still cause harm if it falls onto a person, regardless of whether the passenger is in the middle of an important business or waiting for their turn on the aisle. However, Darryl Chan Chun-hoi, a former chairman of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers’ aircraft division said the entire thing was blown out of proportion.
“Anything that breaks is unpleasant to see. But then again, when we use a rental car or go to a hotel or shopping centre, we see many things that need servicing”, he told SCMP. “Because aviation is high profile, the media and social media likes it, and it makes the news.”
With everyone arriving safely at their destination Chun-hoi commended the flight attendants’ response to the incident. In the absence of any protocol regarding broken fixtures during take-off, the crew responded promptly and fulfilled their priority duty of keeping the cabin safe.
