China detains 25 passengers for opening plane doors

Twenty-five angry passengers on board a plane in southwest China were detained after they opened emergency exit doors before take-off and fought with the crew as their flight was delayed for hours by snow, state media reported on Sunday.

The China Eastern Airlines flight, MU2036 from Kunming of southwest China’s Yunnan Province to Beijing, was scheduled to take off at 8.45 pm (local time) Friday. But it was delayed by continuing snow until the early morning on Saturday, Xinhua news agency reported.

Passengers finished boarding the aircraft at 1.40 am and then waited for ice on the plane to be cleared. An elderly woman felt uncomfortable after hours of waiting. Conce-rned about her physical condition, many passengers demanded explanation by the captain. Accor-ding to a passenger, the vice-captain failed to pacify them. “He was quite emotional, swore and cursed to us,” said a passenger on microblog.

“Some passenger called the police, but the pilot insisted on taking off. So passengers opened three emergency doors in an attempt to stop the flight,” he said. “The pilot (vice captain in fact) has lost control and we couldn’t risk to let him start,” he added. The flight which had been taxiing then returned to the boarding gate. A spokesperson with China Eastern Airlines Yunnan company denied use “improper language.”