Swiss 777 damaged by airstairs in São Paulo
On Tuesday, October 20th, one of Swiss’s 777-300ER’s was hit on the wing and damaged by airstairs in São Paulo, Brazil. The incident ocurred because, according to witnesses, winds during a thunderstorm pushed the stairs to the wing.
The aircraft involved:
The aircraft on the incident was HB-JNK, Swiss’s second newest 777-300ER on the fleet of 12 of the aircraft. Because of the incident, the aircraft had to stay in São Paulo for repairs, causing the cancellation of multiple flights, including the return flight to Zurich. According to RadarBox, the aircraft is still in São Paulo.
How could winds push airstairs?
According to SimpleFlying, airstairs which are similar to the one involved in the incident have about 1.5 tons, and airstars of that size would require very strong winds to be pushed, and, according to news articles and to me, as a São Paulo resident, there weren’t strong enough winds… Except if ground crew forgot to engage the airstairs’s breaks. What probably happened is that the ground crew forgot to engage the brakes on the airstairs, and as the stairs have wheels, the small wind was enough to push the airstairs to the wing.
Here are some images of the incident:
