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British Airways flight forced to divert after air steward collapses in mid-air medical emergency
A BRITISH Airways air stewardess collapsed in mid-air forcing a jet to divert in a dramatic hospital dash.
The cabin-crew member felt unwell on the BA flight from Heathrow to capital Bucharest and the captain changed course in the “medical emergency".
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The Airbus A320 with 170 passengers on board landed at Budapest as staff on board tended their ailing colleague.
She was taken to hospital in the Hungarian capital escorted by another crew member - but the flight was unable to continue on Saturday evening and was delayed for more than 21 hours.
Sources said staff on board feared the stewardess was having a heart attack - but this was later discounted and she was recovering yesterday.
A BA source said: “It seemed very serious at the time and the captain had no option but to divert.
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“She was quite a young woman and was clearly very unwell and a medical emergency was declared.
“Another crew member went with her to hospital as soon as the plane landed but the delay meant that the limit on the number of hours staff had worked was exceeded.
“The plane was unable to resume its journey and all passengers and crew were forced to overnight in Budapest.
“Hundreds of passengers waiting for the plane in Bucharest for a return flight to Heathrow were also delayed by almost a whole day and also had to be found hotels for the night.
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“It’s caused an enormous amount of disruption for passengers left stranded.
“But the wellbeing of the stewardess had to be put first in the circumstances.”
The medical drama meant forced flight BA886 to divert - and caused the cancellation of BA887 from Bucharest which had due to take off at 9.05pm on Saturday.
That flight eventually took off at 6.20pm, arriving back at Heathrow Terminal Three on Sunday at 7.40pm UK time - which is two hours behind Romania.
BA declined to identify the sick stewardess or disclose the nature of her illness.
A spokeswoman said: “The safety of our customers and colleagues is always our priority.
“We apologised to customers for the delay to their flight after the aircraft had to divert due to a medical emergency.”
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