Melissa Phillips: American traveller sues British Airways for £50k after breaking leg falling down plane steps - The Independent
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An American traveller who broke her leg in a fall while disembarking from a plane at Heathrow Airport is suing British Airways (BA) for more than £50,000, according to High Court documents.
Melissa Phillips, 49, sustained spiral fractures in her left fibula and tibia because of the fall in March 2023.
Her lawyers said in court documents the fall was caused by the airline’s “negligence”.
Ms Phillips, who lives in Maryland, was travelling back to the US from Israel with BA, via Heathrow in London.
But her barrister said in court documents that there was “minimal crowd control or direction” from cabin crew as passengers went down “damp” steps to leave the aircraft, leading to Ms Phillips being “jostled and knocked” and then falling.
BA is defending the claim, with its barrister saying that Ms Phillips was negligent as she “descended the steps without looking, or adequately looking”, and that the most likely cause of the fall was Ms Phillips “simply losing her footing”.
The airline denies liability for the incident, but has offered to pay Ms Phillips £6,987 for her medical expenses.
Katherine Deal KC, for Ms Phillips, said in court documents that disembarking passengers from the flight from Israel to Heathrow was “chaotic”.
She said: “Had the steps not been full of jostling passengers, the claimant would not have been knocked off balance.”
Ms Deal also said that the airline failed to “avoid or materially reduce the risk of passengers jostling each other on overcrowded steps”, and “otherwise failed in all the circumstances to provide reasonably safe air transport services”.
The lawyer said that Ms Phillips underwent surgery after being taken to hospital, before being flown back to the US days later.
She said: “The claimant underwent therapy and treatment but continues to experience pain, some limitation of movement and loss of amenity affecting aspects of her daily life over and above her pre-accident symptoms.
“Her ability to run her home was impaired.
“The claimant has some psychological distress as a result of her ongoing pain and immobility. Her symptoms are expected to be permanent.”
Christopher Loxton, for BA, said in its defence to the claim that passengers were not going down the steps in an “unusual or unexpected manner” and denied that the steps were damp.
He said that it was “not normal operating procedure” for crowd-control measures to be in place or for cabin crew to give directions, adding that staff did not see “any disorderly or unusual passenger disembarkation”.
He said: “It is the defendant’s case that the likely cause of the claimant’s fall was simply paying insufficient attention to the way in which she was descending the steps and that she lost her footing and fell down the same steps.”
Mr Loxton said that BA claimed that Ms Phillips “caused herself to come into contact” with other passengers or their luggage and failed to hold on to the handrails, meaning she “failed, in all the circumstances, to exercise reasonable skill and care”.
A hearing in the claim is yet to take place.
