According to local media reports, 53-year-old flight attendant Harsha Lobo fell off Air India flight 864 while closing the exit door for departure from Mumbai to New Delhi. The plane was originally scheduled to depart at 7 a.m. but was delayed an hour and a half due to the incident.
"The woman crew member was closing the door for pushback when she fell from the aircraft," an unidentified Air India spokesperson told Channel News Asia Monday.
Air India is currently investigating the incident, according to reports.
"In an unfortunate incident, one of our cabin crew, Harsha Lobo, fell down on the tarmac from the Boeing-777 aircraft door while closing it," the airline said in a statement Monday provided to Channel News Asia.
"She sustained injuries to her legs and has been taken to the Nanavati Hospital for further treatment."
According to statement released by Nanavati Hospital, Lobo also suffered multiple fractures and injuries in her chest and lower spine.
"An Air India cabin crew member was brought to Nanavati Super Speciality Hospital at 7 a.m. after she suffered serious injuries. She is suffering from right leg compound fracture, a fracture in both heels and soft tissue injury in chest, abdomen and lower spine," the hospital statement said, TimeNowNews.com reported Monday.
"She also suffered from a sprain in the neck (cervical spine). She is being treated under Dr. Prakash M. Doshi, Director of Orthopedics and Traumatology, and is currently under observation," the statement added.
This is not the first time that Indian airlines have made headlines this year.
Last Thursday, an Air India flight with 136 persons on board hit a compound wall in Trichy, an ancient city in India's southern Tamil Nadu state, before takeoff. The pilots, unaware of the accident, took off as scheduled and flew for around three hours, until they realized the aircraft had been damaged and the made an emergency landing at Mumbai. No passengers or crew members sustained any injuries. The airline is currently looking into whether the incident was caused by a technical snag or pilot error.
On October 8, the engine of an IndiGo A320 neo aircraft failed mid-air, forcing the plane to return to Bangalore, the capital of India's southern Karnataka state. IndiGo has been facing problems with the Pratt & Whitney engines powering its A320 neo aircraft, Sputnik reported last week.
A month earlier, Jet Airways crew members forgot to turn on the so-called "bleed switch" during a flight, resulting in a drop in cabin pressure that caused headaches and nosebleeds for many passengers.
Also in September, an Air India aircraft landed on the wrong runway, which was under construction, posing a threat to the lives of 136 passengers and four crew members on board. A window panel also fell off an Air India aircraft in April due to severe turbulence, injuring three passengers.
Air India and Nanavati Hospital did not immediately respond to Sputnik's requests for comment.
