According to sources who were close to the event today, it appears this was indeed a brand new crew member on their very first flight who placed the door into automatic on pushback (in line with their door responsibilities) and then proceeded to then rotate the door handle immediately afterwards. 🤯

Before the cross-check crew member at 3R could stop them it was too late and the inevitable happened.

My understanding is they were removed from the crew compliment when the flight eventually departed. Presumably they were replaced with a standby crew member.

The knock on effect of delay, EU delay compensation payouts for both outbound and potentially inbound service, not to mention the costs of having the slide repacked and primed for future use could easily extend well into six figures.

Despite the human error factor of the incident it would be hard for any employer to overlook any of this or let it go with just a slap on the wrist and a warning of don't do it again. Presumably the crew member concerned will still be going through some form of probation which is effectively the time to keep your nose clean in any employment and not to show yourself up to being a liability.

While it's hard not to feel sorry for the individual in this situation, not every BA crew member manages to accidentally blow a slide in their BA career, let alone on their first flight.

I'm sure a full internal enquiry will be made into what was actually running through their mind at the time of incident or whether internal training procedures had anything to do with it. However we won't ever find out what happened.... and that's completely fair IMHO.... its not our business.

I suspect however this will indeed end with a P45 for the crew member concerned on this occasion.