A ground worker got an almighty shock when the pilots of a Jetstar plane fired up its engines to taxi to the runway at Newcastle Airport, while the worker remained connected by a cable to the A320's nose.

In what air-safety investigators have described as a "serious incident", the dispatcher had been walking beside the aircraft as it was pushed back from in front of the airport's terminal, attached by the cable to a headset to allow communication with the pilots.

It was after the pushback that the attention of the Jetstar pilots was diverted to monitoring a plane in a neighbouring bay that had requested clearance to taxi to the runway.