Air Asia employee Amrita Roy, who died on duty on Sunday. (Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya)

A 25-year-old Calcutta girl working for an international airline died at Hyderabad airport on Sunday after her hand got stuck between the metal frames of a retracting aerobridge.

Standing on the edge of the aircraft door, Air Asia guest services officer Amrita Roy had barely finished welcoming the last passenger on board a Kuala Lumpur flight around 9.30am when she spotted the aerobridge retracting and jumped to get back on it.

Witnesses said the folding metal rings of the 30-foot-long aerobridge closed in on Amrita’s right hand even as she held on to something to keep herself from falling. She screamed for help but her hand was crushed before anybody could come to her rescue, they added.

Aerobridge number 55 had to be reopened for Amrita’s hand to be extricated. Bleeding profusely, she died an hour later at the Apollo medical centre on the airport premises.

Amrita, who was to get married in November, was Hazra couple Kamal and Sudakshina Roy’s only child. The bereaved parents left for Hyderabad on Sunday.

Police sources in Hyderabad said a case of death by negligence had been registered at the airport police station there.

P. Sripathy, the CEO of the airport, located at Shamshabad on the outskirts of the city, said a committee headed by his deputy had been set up to probe the incident.

An airport spokesman claimed this was the first major accident at the new airport since it commenced operations in March 2008.

Sources at Calcutta airport said the aerobridge operator should have waited for the flight crew to signal that they would shut the aircraft door before retracting it.

Air Asia described Amrita, who had joined the airline in July 2009, as one of its better employees. “Ms Roy had just joined service a year ago and was one of our promising workers,” a spokesperson said.

Cousin Linda said she had worked in the front office of a star hotel in Calcutta before joining Air Asia. After a training stint in Malaysia, she was posted in Hyderabad.