A woman is suing British Airways for more than £50,000 after breaking bones in a fall while getting off a flight at Heathrow Airport.
Melissa Phillips, 49, from Maryland in the United States, suffered spiral fractures in her left fibula and tibia while disembarking a BA flight from Israel to Heathrow in March 2023.
She claims the injury was caused by the airline’s negligence, and is seeking damages of more than £50,000.
What Ms Phillips claims happened
According to court documents, Ms Phillips was knocked off balance as she made her way down the aircraft steps after landing at Heathrow.
Katherine Deal KC, representing Ms Phillips, said in the court documents: “Had the steps not been full of jostling passengers, the claimant would not have been knocked off balance.”
Ms Deal described the disembarkation as “chaotic” and criticised BA for failing to manage the risk of passengers jostling each other on “overcrowded steps”.
She said Ms Phillips underwent surgery after being taken to hospital, before being flown back to the US days later.
Ms Deal added: “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,” she said. “The claimant has some psychological distress as a result of her ongoing pain and immobility.”
“Her symptoms are expected to be permanent.”
British Airways denies liability
British Airways has denied liability, but has offered Ms Phillips £6,987 to cover medical expenses.
Christopher Loxton, representing the airline, argued that Ms Phillips was at fault for not paying attention while descending the steps.
He said passengers were not going down the steps in an “unusual or unexpected manner” and denied claims that the steps were damp.
Mr Loxton 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.”
What happens next
The claim is being pursued through the courts, with Ms Phillips seeking damages of more than £50,000 for her injuries and their lasting effects.
British Airways maintains that it is not liable for the fall, and the two sides disagree over what caused it — whether overcrowded steps and jostling passengers, as Ms Phillips claims, or a loss of footing, as the airline argues.
Heathrow is Britain’s busiest airport, handling tens of millions of passengers a year, and disembarkation is one of the busiest moments of any flight, with hundreds of passengers leaving an aircraft through a small number of exits in a short space of time.
The case is a reminder of how quickly a routine arrival can turn into a serious injury — and of how sharply the two sides in a personal injury claim can disagree about who was responsible.
British Airways has faced other incidents involving its flights in recent years, including a BA flight from Gatwick that had to make an emergency return to the airport and a BA flight from Heathrow that was intercepted by German jets.
