Passenger sues airline after a CUSTOMER drops a bag on her head from the overhead cabin

A WOMAN has been left with a permanent dent on her forehead and other injuries after a suitcase fell out of a plane’s overhead compartment and landed on her head.

Kalisfena Egorova, 37, from Sydney, is seeking more than £120,000 in damages from China Eastern Airlines after the incident on a flight from Beijing to Sydney, with a stopover in Nanjing, in March last year.

Ms Egorova said she suffered a concussion and sore neck immediately after the incident, which happened during boarding time at Beijing airport, and continues to suffer from persistent headaches and a permanent dent on her forehead.

She claimed that she was getting settled in her aisle seat in economy at the start of the flight when a passenger, who had opened the overhead compartment directly above her, lost his hold and dropped a heavy, wheeled suitcase on her head.

She said: “The passenger was trying to put his luggage in.

“The flight attendant was standing there and the passenger was pushing [the bag] and maybe there was no space.

“It was actually shocking for me [when the bag dropped]. It took me by surprise. It was very painful.”

Ms Egorova, who was travelling on her own, said the suitcase landed on her by the wheel and also struck her upper body, but that the matter was made worse when it appeared no one was willing to help her as she cried out in pain.

She said: “It was shocking for them, I was in tears, I was yelling that I needed ice but the thing is the flight attendant didn’t speak English.

“I was crying in pain, screaming ‘ice’ and all of the passengers were just looking at me.”

Ms Egorova said she got out of her seat and rushed to the galley, where she was given ice to tend her injury.

On a stopover at Nanjing, Ms Egorova said she was assessed by a doctor but was keen to continue her journey to Australia.