Originally Posted by
TangoAir
In case you land on an airport that does not have stairs for the 787, is there a way (like on the 747-200) to access from the cockpit to ground up and down?
To go back to the OP's question: it seems to me a generic one, not only about the 787. Suppose, for whatever reason, you land somewhere that doesn't have stairs for your aircraft, what do you do? You have to get the pax off too, so wriggling through the electronics bay probably isn't an option. Do you just call for help and wait for someone to bring stairs from (possibly) many hours' drive away?
For example, there have been many cases of pilots landing in improbable places by mistake for the runway that they thought they were aiming at. Most of those have been close enough for the embarrassed conversation with the intended destination to include "can you send some steps please?" But what if the landing place was a long way from any steps? The 'Gimli glider' comes to mind.
Some airliners have 'airstairs' that extend from under the forward door – e.g. they are or were an option on the 737, and AFAIR some 737s even had aft airstairs – or ventral airstairs under the tail, such as on the 727 – but they're heavy and I think many operators didn't install them. This question assumes that you don't have airstairs!