Passenger’s innocent mistake delays plane for eight hours

A passenger on a Pakistan International Airlines flight last week caused a significant delay for fellow passengers when they accidentally mistook the emergency door for a bathroom.

The plane, which was bound for Islamabad, was already on the runway at Manchester International Airport when “a passenger erroneously opened the emergency exit causing the emergency chute to activate,” an airline spokesperson told Gulf News. The flight was delayed for almost eight hours as the plane was forced to return to its bay and all passengers were disembarked with their luggage as per airline regulations.

The flight had been scheduled to take off at 9.20pm, but following a long, cold wait, the plane was only able to take off again at 5 am with 38 fewer passengers. The airline had been forced to leave the passengers behind as they no longer had the evacuation capacity due to the missing emergency chute.

And it wasn’t only the delay that was a problem for the airline – it can cost anywhere between R90 000 and R450 000 for an airline to repack and repair an emergency slide once it’s been activated.

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