Originally Posted by
angled
This brought back memories of an incident on an American Airlines flight I took back in 2003 or thereabouts. I was flying Economy LHR-JFK in a very empty plane... I think we were still in the post 9/11 lull. As we were taxiing, one of the slides on the right hand side was triggered somehow... maybe 4R or 5R? I didn't really know much about planes or flying back then but it was definitely a door in the economy section. But what I *do* remember is that it really didn't take them long to close it all up and get us on our way. And I'm pretty sure they didn't fit a new slide... they put signs and tape on the door making it clear it was out of action - and just moved all the passengers away from that area of the plane into other seats.
Based upon the passenger load this may have been entirely within limits to have been able to depart with one door inoperative.
I've been on a Virgin flight before back to the UK where 2R on a 747 was placarded with multiple NOT IN USE signs on the inside.
After the safety demonstration video a further announcement was made that in an emergency door 2 on the right hand side would not be in use and in an evacuation to use alternative exits.
Again we were far from full which seems to have made this a go item, especially as the aircraft was returning to base where presumably it would have been taken out of service for maintenance attention.
The fact todays incident occurred at base where maintenance could address the issue as well as the load factor on outbound/inbound flights may well have dictated the change of aircraft as opposed to letting this one fly with one door inoperative on this occasion.