Passenger opens emergency exit of IndiGo flight, DGCA orders probe
New Delhi: A passenger on an IndiGo, Chennai-Tiruchirappalli flight opened the emergency exit on December 10 last year, DGCA said in a communication on Tuesday, adding that it has taken due note of the incident and ordered a probe into it, media reported.
The incident took place on IndiGo flight 6E-7339, ANI reported. The identity of the passenger is yet to be ascertained.
In a previous communication the aviation regulator had said that the flight was bound for Thiruvananthapuram but later the carrier clarified that it was headed to Tiruchirappalli, said the report.
Luckily, the flight had not taken off and no untoward incident occurred.
Confirming that the flight regulator had taken note of the incident, a senior DGCA official told ANI, "The incident was duly reported. It appears that the passenger opened the RH emergency exit door by mistake while the aircraft was still on the ground. The crew moved in swiftly and all appropriate action to restore airworthiness such as reinstalling the door, pressurisation check was carried out before the flight was cleared for departure. No safety protocol was compromised with."
This comes amid a series of incidents of misconduct by passengers. On November 26, a man named Shankar Mishra peed on a 72-year-old female passenger in an inebriated state in the business class of a New York-Delhi Air India flight.
He was arrested from Bengaluru after Air India filed an FIR with Delhi Police. The case was filed under IPC sections 354, 509, and 510 and Section 23 of the Indian Aircraft Act.
His employer, US-based financial services company Wells Fargo also ended his contract, taking note of the alleged misconduct.
In yet another case of inflight harassment, a foreign tourist allegedly misbehaved with the female flight attendants on GO First's flight from New Delhi to Goa on January 5.
The passenger allegedly insisted that one of them sit with him and speak obscenely with another.
He was handed over to the airport security agency CISF at Goa's new airport Manohar International Airport, Mopa, and the regulator DGCA was informed, said the report. More details are not still not known.