Chinese flight crew subdue passenger who tried to open emergency exit mid-flight
A plane passenger who tried to open an emergency exit door while the craft was mid-flight has been detained by Chinese police.
A flight security officer noticed the woman trying to open the door while the Capital Airlines plane was enroute from Changsha (長沙) in Hunan (湖南) province to Sanya (三亞) in Hainan (海南) on Monday afternoon.
When he stopped the woman she threatened to commit suicide and two other passengers then came to her aid.
A scuffle then broke out between the security officer and the three passengers, zgjtb.com, a news portal under the Ministry of Transport, cited a microblogger as saying.
But flight attendants came to the aid of the security officer and helped him to subdue the trio and alert airport police.
“It’s really not an easy job to be flight crew, especially when facing the daredevils,” the microblogger, RogerStandy, said. “Fortunately knives are banned on flights.”
The flight landed safely in Sanya at around 2pm.
The woman, who was in her 20s, and “other relevant individuals” were handed over to Sanya airport police, who were investigating, Beijing Capital Airlines told the South China Morning Post.
It’s really not an easy job to be flight crew, especially when facing the daredevils
The incident follows a series of cases in which mainland Chinese passengers have attempted to open the emergency doors of aircraft.
In one such case, a passenger on a flight from Hangzhou (杭州) to Chengdu (成都), triggered a safety scare by yanking open an emergency exit just minutes before a plane was due to take off to “get some fresh air”, Southern Metropolis Daily reported.
Another passenger, flying from Urumqi (烏魯木齊) to Zhengzhou (鄭州), managed to open an emergency exit shortly after a plane had landed, though he later explained that he had been nervous during the landing and thought the handle was a handrail that he could grab onto for support, according to China News Service.
In the first five months of 2015, the Civil Aviation Administration of China dealt with 12 cases in which Chinese air passengers had tried to open emergency exit doors.
In May, a passenger in Yanji in northeastern Jilin (吉林) province was criminally charged for endangering public safety. He is allegedly opened an emergency door before take-off, delaying the flight more than four hours.
