Airport worker divides opinion after being filmed doing 'final checks' on plane door from the outside
Topics: Travel, Viral, Social Media, YouTube
Emily Brown
Featured Image Credit: YouTube/Fairport
Topics: Travel, Viral, Social Media, YouTube
Footage of an airport worker conducting checks on a plane door has left viewers divided after being shared online.
YouTuber Fairport, aka Igarashi Fumihiko, offers all sorts of interesting insights to life on the tarmac at airports, and has racked up more than 80,000 followers with his various videos.
This month, Fairport shared a video filmed from the outside of a departing plane which showed a member of staff leaning out over a jet bridge to close its door.
Advert
The staff member was attached to a harness to prevent him falling from the bridge, and turned a large handle on the door of the plane until it clicked into place, sealing the door in the process.
Once the handle had clicked into its slot, the worker proceeded to check the seal of the door by banging and tapping on it, and running his hands around its perimeter.
He then took a step back to give the door one final check with his eyes, before giving it a point which indicated it was good to go.
The check took place on a 787 plane, according to Fairport, and while the door does indeed look to be closed, the way in which the worker went about it has sparked some mixed reactions.
"I feel like I don’t quite trust him," one person commented after the video made its way to Twitter, while another added: "I can understand some of it, but not sure why he’s feeling the door up."
"Does he have to beat on it like a drum?," asked a third.
The video also left viewers confused as to why the worker was closing the door from outside the plane, rather than inside.
One person took to Reddit to try to gain answers about the situation, asking: "Can anyone explain why doors are being closed from outside, is it normal?"
In response, one Reddit user claimed the video depicted a rear door being closed, adding: "It was likely used to load catering and the crew were otherwise occupied. It happens quite a lot."
Another viewer praised the man's approach to closing the door, writing: "Yeah this guy deserves a medal. He closed it, verified all seams by feel, and then did a final visual inspection of the whole thing.
"You can mentally see him checking off items on a checklist. We need more people like him!"
Though closing a plane door from the outside isn't as uncommon as some people may think, it's also possible for crew members to close doors from the inside of a plane - which is when you might hear pilots asking crew to 'arm doors'.