The door of an American Airlines-operated Boeing 787 Dreamliner was ripped clean off its hinges on Sunday after an apparent accident involving a jetbridge at Dublin International Airport.
The jetbridge, which leads into Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport, had been attached to what is often referred to as D2L of the 787-8 aircraft – which simply means the second door on the left-hand side of the aircraft.
Thankfully, there were no passengers or crew onboard the plane when the jetbridge suffered some form of failure and suddenly dropped, taking the door with it.
The seven-year-old aircraft, which had arrived in Dublin from Chicago at 11:30 am on Sunday and was due to depart a little more than two hours later for Philadelphia, will likely remain on the ground for several days at least while it undergoes repairs.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, American Airlines was forced to cancel its AA723 departure to Philadephia.
In a statement, American Airlines told us: “An American Airlines aircraft was damaged due to a jetbridge malfunction at Dublin Airport (DUB). No customers or crew were on board at the time and there were no reported injuries.”
“We are sending a replacement aircraft to operate Flight 723, with service from DUB to PHL, which is now expected to depart tomorrow afternoon. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and thank our team for their professionalism.”
Last year, a British Airways Boeing 777-200 jet had a cabin door ripped off while it was parked and connected to a jetbridge in Cape Town when a tug driver started to push the plane back without realising the door was still open.
And in August 2020, an Emirates 777-300 was badly damaged while parked at the gate in Manila when the jet bridge malfunctioned and started lifting while the forward left-hand door was open.
A similar accident occurred to a Lufthansa A340-300 jet at Denver International Airport in 2008 when the jet bridge suddenly and unexpectedly lowered. In that incident, the door was ripped clean off just moments after 204 passengers had boarded the aircraft.
In the same year, another A340-300 operated by Virgin Atlantic was badly damaged when a jet bridge at Cape Town International Airport also collapsed. The repair time after that ancient was estimated to be 6-8 weeks because of feared structural damage.
