A TUI Airways Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was badly damaged at Birmingham International Airport on Tuesday after a set of mobile airstairs nearly ripped off the front left-hand door.
Pictures shared on social media showed the door hanging on after it was lifted out of position by the airstairs. The cause of the accident hasn’t yet been determined, although airstairs and airbridges have been known to malfunction and raise unexpectedly.
The nine-year-old Dreamliner (registration: G-TUIF) appears to have been preparing for a very short positioning flight to Bristol Airport, according to data supplied by Flight Radar 24, and as such, no passengers would have been onboard at the time of the accident.
TUI Airways did not, however, immediately respond to a request for comment, and it’s not known whether anyone was injured.
Last July, an American Airlines Boeing 787-8 had one of its doors ripped clean off by a malfunctioning jetbridge at Dublin Airport, which suddenly lowered while attached to the side of the aircraft.
Thankfully, there were no passengers or crew onboard the aircraft at the time of the accident.
In 2002, a British Airways Boeing 777-200 had one of its doors ripped off when it was still attached to the jetbridge, but in that case, it wasn’t due to any sort of malfunction, but rather, a tug driver started to push the aircraft back from the gate not realising that the aircraft door was locked open
