Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Production Company Guilty in Harrison Ford’s ‘Star Wars’ Injury

Harrison Ford in 2015. He was injured on the British set of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” in 2014.Credit...Rob Griffith/Associated Press

Two years after the actor Harrison Ford was badly injured on the set of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” by a hydraulic door on the Millennium Falcon starship, a Disney subsidiary has accepted responsibility for workplace safety breaches at Pinewood Studios, near London.

On Tuesday, the subsidiary, Foodles Productions — a name chosen to hide the filming from “Star Wars” fanatics — pleaded guilty to two criminal charges in a British court.

“This was a foreseeable incident,” Britain’s Health and Safety Executive office, the workplace safety regulator, said in a statement announcing the pleas.

In its own statement on Tuesday, Foodles said it had cooperated with the investigation, adding, “The safety of our cast and crew was always a top priority throughout the production.”

In June 2014, Mr. Ford became trapped when a remotely operated metal-framed door on the Millennium Falcon, the legendary starship belonging to his character Han Solo, began to shut rapidly, hitting him with a force “comparable to the weight of a small car,” the workplace regulator said.

The actor suffered a dislocated ankle and two broken bones in his left leg, and was airlifted to a hospital for treatment. Production on the film, the seventh installment in the space saga, was halted for two weeks.

Mr. Ford, 74, who discussed the accident on a British talk show, “The Jonathan Ross Show,” in December, joked that in the old days, such a door would have been operated by a pulley.

“But now we had lots of money and technology, and so they built a great hydraulic door which closed at light speed,” he added, using a vulgarity.

“Somebody said, ‘I wonder what this is,’ ” he said, mimicking the push of a button. He said he didn’t know who pressed the button.

Prosecutors portrayed the accident as potentially deadly, an outcome averted only because an emergency stop was engaged. The penalty, most likely a fine, will be set on Aug. 22.

Angus Withington, a lawyer representing the company, said he planned to challenge the prosecution’s portrayal of how much danger was involved.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: Harrison Ford Injury: Company Takes Blame. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT