Accident to the Airbus A350 registered F-HTYH operated by Air France on 29/06/2021 at Paris-Charles de Gaulle

The aircraft arrived at a peak time for long-haul flight arrivals, which stretches emergency care and assistance resources. The distribution of persons with reduced mobility on board the aeroplane, between the different specialist vehicles upon arrival was not shared with the crew prior to the landing and the matter was only addressed after the other passengers had disembarked. The cabin crew then had to manage an unplanned situation involving a number of passengers wanting to board a specialist vehicle beyond the vehicle’s capacity, when all of the aeroplane’s occupants were fatigued from the flight.

A PRM and her travel companion did not want to be separated and chose to use the disembarkation steps to stay together. The heavy workload associated with the confused situation, as well as the behaviour (described as aggressive) of the travel companion, prevented the crew members, the arrival agent and the assistance personnel from spotting in time that the passenger was descending the steps alone and unaided. She subsequently tripped during her descent and fell to the bottom of the steps.

The emergency services were alerted in compliance with the procedures in force. The public emergency services took longer to arrive than the average response time for this type of intervention at Paris-Charles de Gaulle. The crew members considered the response time to be too long, likely due to the perceived severity of the medical emergency and to their knowledge of the usually very quick response times of the ARFF in the aeronautical domain.

Due to the lack of updates on the expected arrival time of the emergency services, the captain decided to issue a MAYDAY to put an end to his uncertainty. This alert, which was issued several minutes before the arrival of the emergency services mobilised first, led to the subsequent mobilisation of substantial fire fighting resources.