Just a few days after Jet Airways’ air crew blunder that resulted in several passengers onboard Flight 697 to bleed from the orifices on their head, another India carrier’s passengers had a near miss, but this time, it is not the crew that was involved; it was one passenger. The incident happened on GoAir, a Mumbai-based low-cost international carrier, on Saturday (September 22) on a flight from New Delhi to Patna. An Indian passenger apparently mistaken the aircraft door for the toilet’s, sparking a panic when he attempted to open the plane’s door. Yikes.
Luckily, someone managed to inform the crew who prevented the unspeakable from happening. OK. Maybe it was not quite ‘unspeakable’ because, this passenger won’t be able to open the door anyways because of the highly pressurized cabin. Still, it begs the question: why in the world would anyone mistaken an airplane’s door for the toilet’s? Well, as it turned out, the said passenger, a Mohammad Sanowar Khan, was a first time flier. He claimed he had never flew before, like ever.
According to a report, fellow passengers who saw him tugging at the exit door asked him what he was doing, he replied that needed to use the restroom urgently and that was when the passengers thought it will be a good idea to let the crew know. Even though the aircraft wasn’t in danger, it was still a scary prospect that someone actually wanted to open that dang door. Whatever the excuse might be, the passenger was eventually handed over to the authorities for further investigation upon arriving at the destination.
Passengers attempting to open the aircraft door in a non emergency situation is not new. Just not too long ago, a China passenger waiting to leave on a flight to southwestern province of Sichuan in China managed to pop open an emergency exit just so he could get some fresh air. In process, he deployed the escape slide. And he wasn’t the first.
Some years earlier, same thing happened in Shenzhen airport when one passenger wanted to “get some fresh air” while waiting for the flight to take off. But not all cases were about fresh air and toilet. Back in May this year, a Lion Air Flight in Indonesia was cancelled after a bomb joke sparked a panic onboard that had several passengers forcing open an exit in an attempt to escape from the so-called ‘bomb’. Now, that, my friends, was one sick joke.
Image: Sean D’Silva via Wikipedia.
Source: Channel NewsAsia.
