Chinese Air Passenger Causes Emergency After Opening Plane Door ‘For Some Fresh Air’

A Chinese airline passenger has been detained by police after opening an emergency door to ‘get some fresh air. The passenger was reportedly under the wrong impression that turning the lever would open a window - but his actions delayed take off by over an hour while security checks were conducted again


The unnamed man was reportedly in the city of Chengdu, capital of China’s south-western Sichuan Province, aboard a China Southern Airlines flight, when the incident happened.

He is said to have felt claustrophobic in the Boeing 737, but ended up risking the lives of all 130 passengers and flight crew when he approached the emergency door and pulled hard on the lever.

Unsurprisingly, the door popped open and shocked the passenger, who only thought he would be ‘rolling down the window’.

He now faces being blacklisted from all air travel - along with a custodial sentence.

China’s Civil Aviation Administration has recorded 15 separate cases of passengers opening emergency doors, which was mainly the result of ignorance from the travellers who were unaware of the strict regulations and punishments for breaching them.