Gomac

A plane passenger is said to be fighting for his life after being hit on the head by a bag which fell from an overhead locker.

The man reportedly fell to the floor after the freak accident on a British Airways plane which was waiting to take off at Heathrow Airport.

Full story http://www.standard.co.uk/news/trans...-a3138306.html

Suppose it was only a matter of time before something like this happened with the new HBO fares. Will this lead to a change?

Gomac

Looks like it was a flight to BKK so not directly related to the HBO situation but may lead to changes all the same....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...axied-off.html

MSPeconomist

If he fell to the floor and collapsed, it sounds like he was standing up when the accident happened. Yet, the aircraft was supposedly awaiting takeoff so he should have been seated with seatbelt fastened. I wonder whether he was trying to access something in the overhead bin.

I also wonder whether the bin was properly closed (and latched) when this happened.

opalfruit

He fought so hard for his life that he managed to get to BKK on the next available flight...

Sensationalist claptrap.

Waterhorse

.......

callum9999

Not "directly" related? Try not remotely related...

If it leads to changes it will be minor changes like weighing bigger bags (and reducing the slightly ridiculous 23kg limit) and enforcing limits more strongly. A huge proportion of global flights (I'd wager over half) are HBO and everyone else somehow copes, I hardly think BA customers are uniquely vulnerable.

Gomac

A very good point, but either it can't be denied that encouraging passengers to not check in bags and to take it in the cabin makes these situations more likely to happen in the future.

mentor of monty

Extraordinary amount of hypothesizing going on with about three facts. Almost as much conjecture and hyperbole up-thread as there is in the two articles.

xenole

Could be a source of a new fee / tax whatever to charge the customer

scottishpoet

maybe they updated the article, when I reading now I cannot see anything about fighting for his life, just that he was hospitalized and treated for a head injury

corporate-wage-slave

This happened on Monday at the B gates, it delayed BA9's departure by just over an hour, the flight left the gate 80 minutes late. The version I heard/saw wasn't quite as serious as written up, it was more a case of being cautious given it was a head injury.

Smid

I've always thought the club overhead lockers and a misbalanced and flexible bag might involve a spill if say someone wasn't paying attention....

theddo

BA in LHR are very lenient with maximum hand baggage, in my experience. One flight in particular a family of 2 boarded with 4 rollaboards and 2 small bags without questions. The couldn't find space for them since they boarded last, but anyway.

rumbataz

Overhead lockers are simply not designed to cope with BA's cabin baggage weight limit IMO. 23KG for one bag stored in a flimsy locker above your head is not safe (again, IMO). In the event of severe turbulence a 23KG hard-shelled projectile being thrown around the cabin is going to hurt.

I'm sure I used to see a locker weight limit printed on the inside of the lockers on some flights and it was much lower than what people put in the lockers these days.

I also often see cabin crew forcing a locker door shut and you can see the latch is extremely strained.

If the airlines received much stiffer penalties for accidents like this then it may force them to adopt safer bag storage policies.

All of the above is simply my personal opinion.

MPH1980

I was on a flight out of YYZ about a month or so ago where we pushed back while passengers were still storing their hand baggage due to WT being overwhelmed with bags.

I saw someone stumble with their bag above their head due to the jerk that occurs on pushback.

I reported it to BA and had a call back to inform me that they don't consider pushing back with passengers still storing hand baggage a safety issue.