A female plane passenger opened the emergency exit door before take-off because the cabin was “too stuffy”.
The traveller who said she wanted “fresh air” while the plane was on the tarmac opened the plane door shortly after boarding.
The unnamed passenger was travelling on Xiamen Airlines Flight 8215 on September 23 from Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in the capital of Central China’s Hubei Province.
According to cabin crew on the flight, the incident happened towards the end of boarding. Flight attendants had reportedly warned the female passenger and others near her not to touch the lever on the emergency door after she was shown to her seat.
However, the woman is believed to have felt the cabin was “too stuffy” and popped open the emergency exit to get some “fresh air”, reports said.
The video, which has since gone viral, has been watched more than 18 million times.
Flight crew and other passengers bound for the city of Lanzhou, capital of China’s north-western province of Gansu, were then forced to wait in the aircraft as airport police turned up and arrested the woman for the offence.
Xiamen Airline staff told local media that the incident caused a one-hour delay while the emergency door was shut again, and after a second round of safety inspections was presumably carried out.
Wuhan airport police have yet to release the passenger’s name or age, and it is unclear whether she faces an indefinite travel ban for the stunt.
