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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS