You know how some kids just have to touch the stove when their parents tell them it’s hot?
Right after an announcement that passengers shouldn’t touch the emergency exit door unless it’s an emergency a passenger on Xiamen Airlines flight MF8118 on Monday opened an exit door deploying the slide. She faces detention and significant costs.
Woman detained 12 days for releasing plane's emergency slide right before takeoff, which led to cancellation of a Beijing-Xiamen flight Mon pic.twitter.com/ALViklThK1
— People's Daily,China (@PDChina) June 14, 2017
The woman says she was “just curious” however “[u]nder China’s Civil Aviation laws, the woman will be liable for any costs in the incident.”
Curiosity is expensive:
[A]n executive from Xiamen Airlines said the minimum cost for fixing the slide was about 100,000 yuan ($14,700) if there was no damage to its airbag. Otherwise, the direct loss could hit approximately 450,000 yuan.Indirect losses, including the flight cancellation, rearrangement of passengers and adverse effects on subsequent flights were being estimated, the executive added.
The flight had to be cancelled and 112 passengers re-accommodated. Fortunately Xiamen Airlines operates 6 daily frequencies on the three hour route between Beijing and Xiamen, including four more on Monday (two Boeing 737s, a 757, and a 787).
Flight attendants have been known to ‘peace out’ by popping an aircraft slide on arrival and running away down the tarmac. (Although sometimes they just set fire to the lav.)
Sometimes passengers open the aircraft door and head off themselves to avoid deportation or simply because as on this China Southern flight they can’t find the bathroom so try all the doors.
In December 2014 a 50 year old man on another Xiamen Airlines flight in Hangzhou opened the emergency exit door because he “just want to breathe before taking off.”