A passenger on board a flight in India started a huge panic after he confused the plane door with the toilet. In addition to the disruption during the flight, passengers were even held for questioning later.
According to The Independent, a police spokesman said passengers reported that a man in his late 20s had confused the plane door with the toilet. The passengers tried to confront him about his mistake, and he “told them he needed to use the washroom urgently and kept tugging at the exit door.”
The drama happened aboard the GoAir flight from Delhi to Patna in northeastern India. The cabin crew had to physically confront the man and wrestle him away from the door, according to Indian media reports. After they managed to stop him, the man was forced to remain in his seat for the rest of the flight. When the plane landed, they handed him over to airport security.
A spokesperson for GoAir told The Independent that the incident happened during flight G8 149 on Saturday evening. However, the incident was quickly stopped, and the plane landed safely after the 1-hour and 45-minute flight.
“A passenger was trying to open the rear door of the aircraft while in the air,” the spokesperson told The Independent. “A co-passenger raised the alarm and he was intercepted by the crew. Post arrival, the passenger was handed over to CISF (Central Industrial Security Force) for further investigation.”
CISF took the man from the plane to local police after the plane arrived in Patna. Police questioned him to learn his potential motives.
According to Sanowar Khan, the officer in charge of the local police, there was a “pandemonium” on the plane when the man in his 20s, a banker who was traveling on a plane for the first time, confused the plane door with the toilet door and tried to open it.
“People asked him why he was doing so (trying to open the exit gate). He told them that he needed to use the washroom urgently and kept tugging at the exit door. Pandemonium prevailed amid all this and he was restrained and finally handed over to us. He said that the confusion happened because he had boarded a flight for the first time in his life,” he told The Telegraph.
After checking the man’s record, it was confirmed that he had never traveled by plane before, and police released him soon after. Hopefully he has learned his lesson and no such incident will happen again.
