Toilet door comes off during Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to New York

Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways has launched an investigation after a toilet door came off on a New York-bound flight on Monday evening (Jul 15).

A photo that was circulating online showed a flight attendant in a cabin crew seat with her hand holding the detached door. 

A caption accompanying the images said the door came off three minutes after take-off.

"The defect was rectified and our engineering team is performing a follow-up investigation,” Cathay Pacific said in a statement to the South China Morning Post.

"The safety of our customers and crew guides every decision we make. We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience caused."

Passengers on flight CX840 were not hit by the unhinged toilet door as they were wearing seat belts when the fixture fell during take-off, according to engineering experts.

“I believe the incident was due to loose screws, which the airline neglected to check,” said Lo Kok-keung, a retired veteran engineer from Polytechnic University.

“Luckily it happened during the take-off when passengers were all seated and no one was near the fallen door.”

Photos of the incident showed that the toilet door had fallen into the hallway where passengers typically wait for their turn to use the lavatory. In another picture, cabin crew members were seen trying to fix the door.

Lo said the chances of the aluminium-made door falling outward rather than inward were 50-50.

Despite being lightweight, the door was capable of causing some harm if it fell on passengers’ heads or torsos, he added.

“If a passenger was using the toilet and the door fell inward, I believe the passengers would suffer both physically and mentally. He or she might feel very awkward and disturbed,” he said.

Darryl Chan Chun-hoi, a former chairman of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers’ aircraft division, said he would not speculate on the accident’s cause, but said he believed the airline would check whether the door had been damaged or poorly maintained.

There was no protocol for handling fixtures falling during take-off, but the priority in such incidents was to keep the cabin safe, which the flight attendant had performed correctly, he said.

Both engineers said there was no need for passengers to worry about the incident.

“Anything that breaks is not nice to see,” Chan said. “But again, if you go to use a rental car, or if you go to a hotel or you go to a shopping centre, how many things are broken?

This article was first published in SCMP.