Police detained a 33-year-old man suspected of throwing the door open, South Korea’s Yonhap Information Company reported. Police mentioned the person confessed to opening the door however wouldn’t say why he did it.
South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport mentioned in a press release that any one who breaches the Aviation Safety Act — actions that embrace passengers working doorways, exits or tools inside an plane — might be prosecuted and sentenced to as much as 10 years in jail.
“I assumed the aircraft was going to blow up. … It appeared like passengers subsequent to the open door have been fainting,” a passenger instructed Yonhap.
In a video that appeared to have been captured by a passenger and shared broadly on social media and distributed by Reuters, wind whips the aircraft’s cabin, battering passengers and sending unsecured material flapping.
Such doorways are troublesome to open within the air. An plane’s exits are designed to remain in place whereas withstanding vital stress masses, mentioned Nick Wilson, an affiliate professor of aviation on the College of North Dakota. “They’re principally caught in there.”
Together with different plane programs, the sealed doorways and emergency exits hold the cabin pressurized at altitude. With out cabin pressurization, passengers may not have the ability to get sufficient oxygen and will lose consciousness. Within the occasion of a fast decompression at excessive altitude, Wilson mentioned, “you’re going to have some degradation in your capacity to make coherent, helpful decisions.”
At decrease altitudes, the stress between the within and out of doors of the aircraft decreases.
“This particular person seems to have been in a position to open a door on strategy,” Wilson mentioned. “At a decrease elevation, there’s much less differential stress. That will be one of many necessary components that allowed this door to be opened in any respect.”
Flight attendants tried however did not cease the person, Yonhap reported. “Flight attendants shouted for assist from male passengers and folks throughout clung to him and pulled him in,” a witness instructed the information company.
The aircraft was carrying 200 individuals, together with 194 passengers, South Korean retailers reported.
The airline’s workplace on the Daegu Worldwide couldn’t instantly be reached for remark.