Flight heading to Pakistan delayed by eight hours as passenger opens emergency exit door in place of toilet door

Guwahati: A silly mistake done by a lady led a flight from Manchester to take off after a delay of almost eight hours! Although not done purposely, a female passenger who was on-board a Pakistan International Airlines happened to open an emergency exit instead of reaching the toilet door to meet her nature calls. The incident took place in Pakistan International Airlines‘ (PIA) flight PK702 which was ready for departure from Manchester to Islamabad.

The incident of the passenger opening the emergency exit door right ahead of the flight taking off, rang an alarm for the cabin crews and led to an emergency evacuation of the passengers settled to fly in the flight.

Ready to depart on time, at 9.20pm on Friday 7 June, the PIA flight had to delay the flight and take off at 5 in the morning the next day due to certain technical reasons that occur on opening the emergency exit door. As soon as the door got opened, the flight had to stop its departure and the cabin crews evacuated the passengers on-board.

As stated by the PIA, the female passenger had come up of her seat despite being a seat-belt sign being displayed in the flight. She reached the emergency exit door placed at the left-hand side of the aircraft and opened it thinking it to be the toilet door which was adjacent to the emergency door. As per the rules and regulations, it is mandatory for the cabin crew to be seated at the emergency exit. Hence, it is not known whether there was any cabin crew and if there were any then why was the woman not prevented from reaching the door.

As soon as the emergency door was opened the evacuation capacity of the flight is cut and on such grounds, the number of passengers must be reduced. Hence, it is only after 38 passengers volunteered to travel on a later flight, flight PK702 could take off.

Also read: Passenger insists on smoking onboard, flight suffers a three-hour delay