AIRLINE INDUSTRY INFORMATION-(C)1997-2002 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD
The inquest into the death of a disabled woman who died after she fell from a platform designed to lower wheelchair-bound passengers from aircraft, has found the death to be accidental.
Elizbeth Moffatt Anderson, aged 62, died from a brain haemorrhage after she fell on a runway at Alicante Airport in Spain. Peter Anderson, the woman’s husband, said the accident occurred when he tried to help his wife off the hydraulic platform.
The platform, carrying four wheelchair-bound passengers, was lowered to within 1.4m from the ground and the three others were taken, one at a time, on to a second platform that lowered them to the ground. Mr Anderson said a safety chain at the door of the first platform was not in place when he heard airport staff – employed by the Spanish national carrier Iberia – talking to him in Spanish which he did not understand. Assuming it was his turn to move his wife on to the second platform, which unknown to him was on the ground, he pulled her wheelchair towards it and fell backwards, dragging Mrs Anderson with him.
Mrs Anderson hit her head on the runway and suffered a brain haemorrhage. She was flown back to England where she died from her injuries on 6 April last year. Mr Anderson was also severely injured by the accident, reported PA News.
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