A man who allegedly opened an emergency exit on an Asiana Airlines flight in midair felt “suffocated” and wanted to get off quickly, South Korean police said yesterday.
The plane was carrying nearly 200 passengers on Friday as it approached the runway at Daegu International Airport, about 240km southeast of Seoul, on a domestic flight.
When the plane was about 200m above ground, the man, who police said was in his 30s without providing further details, opened the exit door. He was taken in by Daegu police for questioning and was quoted as telling officers that he had been “under stress after losing a job recently.”
Photo: AP
“He felt the flight was taking longer than it should have been and felt suffocated inside the cabin,” a Daegu police detective said. “He wanted out quickly.”
The passenger faces up to 10 years in prison if he is found guilty of contravening aviation safety laws.
Video footage recorded by a nearby passenger showed wind ripping through the open door, with fabric seat-backs and passengers’ hair flapping wildly as some people shouted in surprise.
Another video shared on social media showed passengers sitting in the emergency exit row next to an open door being buffeted by strong winds.
A dozen passengers were taken to hospital after experiencing breathing difficulties, but there were no major injuries or damage, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said.
“It was chaos with people close to the door appearing to faint one by one, and flight attendants calling out for doctors on board,” a 44-year-old passenger told Yonhap news agency. “I thought the plane was blowing up. I thought I was going to die like this.”
A transport ministry official said that this was “the first such incident” they were aware of in South Korean aviation history.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home