Photos of the incident showed that the toilet door had fallen into the hallway where passengers typically wait for their turn to use the lavatory. In another picture, cabin crew members were seen trying to fix the door.
Lo said the chances of the aluminium-made door falling outward rather than inward were 50-50.
Despite being lightweight, the door was capable of causing some harm if it fell on passengers’ heads or torsos, he added.
“If a passenger was using the toilet and the door fell inward, I believe the passengers would suffer both physically and mentally. He or she might feel very awkward and disturbed,” he said.
Darryl Chan Chun-hoi, a former chairman of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers’ aircraft division, said he would not speculate on the accident’s cause, but said he believed the airline would check whether the door had been damaged or poorly maintained.
There was no protocol for handling fixtures falling during take-off, but the priority in such incidents was to keep the cabin safe, which the flight attendant had performed correctly, he said.
Both engineers said there was no need for passengers to worry about the incident.
“Anything that breaks is not nice to see,” Chan said. “But again, if you go to use a rental car, or if you go to a hotel or you go to a shopping centre, how many things are broken?
This article was first published in SCMP.
