A British Airways flight attendant, reportedly working just their second day on the job, accidentally deployed an emergency slide on a Boeing 777 as it was pushing back from the gate on Saturday. Emergency services attended the scene before the carrier replaced the deployed slide, and the flight from London Heathrow Airport (LHR) to Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) did not depart for another six hours.

The expensive mistake will cost the airline over $100,000 at a minimum, although the figure is likely to sit closer to $200,000 after factoring in delay compensation. This is the latest inadvertent slide deployment to occur at British Airways, which has encountered multiple similar incidents in recent years.

Another British Airways Slide Mishap

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The incident occurred on Saturday as the Boeing 777-200ER was pushing back from Gate B47 at Heathrow’s Terminal 5. According to A Fly Guy’s Cabin Crew Lounge, the aircraft’s Door 3L slide was accidentally deployed by an inexperienced flight attendant on their second day in the role. During the final stages of departure, the attendant reportedly heard the command “doors to automatic,” armed the door, then opened it, automatically triggering its emergency slide.

Emergency vehicles arrived at the scene as the slide’s deployment delayed Flight BA217 by several hours. In order for the plane to be cleared to fly, the airline must remove the slide and inspect it before repacking or replacing it, which is a time-consuming process. The flight would eventually depart more than six hours later than scheduled, arriving in Washington at around 21:30 EDT. Simple Flying reached out to British Airways for comment — the airline did not provide any further details on the incident, stating,

“We have apologised to customers for the delay to their journey. Our teams worked hard to get them on their way as quickly as possible.”

Mistake Will Cost At Least $100,000

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Inadvertent slide deployments can prove very expensive for an airline. If the slide has not been damaged at all, the repacking process alone can cost upwards of $20,000, while British Airways will also have to pay out delay compensation. If the slide needed to be replaced entirely, this would add at least another $50,000. Factoring in all the costs, following a similar incident in January 2025 onboard an Airbus A321, a source told The Sun that an accidental deployment is “a minimum £100,000 [$133,000] mistake.”

Under UK261 regulations, passengers on long-haul flights are entitled to compensation of $690 (£520) for delays of over four hours. The aircraft involved in yesterday’s incident (registration: G-VIIY) can seat up to 235 passengers. Assuming around 200 passengers were onboard, this would leave British Airways paying out almost $140,000 in compensation.

The mishap would have been even more costly had it occurred at a foreign airport or at a later time in the day. In that scenario, British Airways would likely have had to cover each passenger’s accommodation for the night, adding tens of thousands of pounds in overheads.

The Latest In A String Of Slide Incidents

Credit: British Airways

British Airways has experienced an unusual cluster of inadvertent slide deployments in recent years, prompting the carrier to introduce new procedures. One of the highest-profile incidents occurred in 2023 before a flight from Heathrow to Lagos, when a flight attendant on their first day of work deployed a 777 slide by accident.

A handful of other deployments have happened since then, including a captain inadvertently deploying a slide just before before pushback in early 2024 and an A321 incident involving a flight attendant in January 2025. The aircraft in Saturday’s incident is a 26-year-old 777-200ER that has flown for the airline since 1999. It went on to operate the flight and has since flown the return leg to Heathrow, and is currently in the air enroute to Bermuda at the time of publication.