- An Air China flight last week was canceled after a passenger accidentally opened an emergency exit.
- Officials told local media that the first-time flyer confused the exit for a bathroom door.
- It took place on a plane due to fly from the eastern city of Quzhou to Chengdu in China's west.
A passenger on an Air China flight last week opened an emergency exit after mistaking it for the bathroom door, local officials told Chinese news outlets.
Data from Flightradar24 shows that the July 4 flight from Quzhou, in eastern China, to Chengdu, in the western Sichuan region, was canceled.
The Chongqing Morning Post said authorities at Quzhou Airport confirmed that the passenger was flying for the first time and believed the door led to the bathroom.
A screenshot of a Chinese flight-tracking app showed that the flight was canceled for "passenger reasons." An image of an Airbus A320 with an emergency slide deployed said to be the plane involved, was shared by local outlets and circulated on social media.
An Air China flight bound for Chengdu was abruptly cancelled after a passenger, mistaking an emergency exit for the lavatory, inadvertently deployed the Airbus A320 aircraft’s emergency slide at Quzhou Airport in Zhejiang province.
— FL360aero (@fl360aero) July 8, 2024
The incident occurred on board Air China’s… pic.twitter.com/2sHB4wOBCS
The Chinese newspaper Guangming Daily said Air China rescheduled the flight for the following day.
Flightradar24 data shows that that flight departed at 10:22 p.m., about one hour and 40 minutes late, and landed about an hour late, at 12:31 a.m. on Saturday.
One passenger told the outlet that flyers were offered compensation of 400 yuan, or about $55.
Air China did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Other passengers have also had problems with exits. In January, an Air Canada traveler boarded a Boeing 777 and then opened a door before falling on the tarmac.
Additionally, this isn't the first time that a new flyer has made a mistake in China. In 2019, a man flying with Lucky Air threw coins into a plane's engine before takeoff, leading to a lawsuit that ultimately saw him ordered to pay damages of around 120,000 yuan ($16,500).
Correction: July 15, 2024 — This story has been updated to remove an unverified detail about a China Southern Airlines passenger.
