Passenger Detained for Opening Emergency Door During taxiing

A passenger opened an emergency door on a Hainan Airlines (HU) flight without authorization on Saturday morning when the plane was taxiing.

Flight HU7917 from Lanzhou to Taipei was taxiing for takeoff at Lanzhou Zhongchuan International Airport (LHW) when a woman on board the aircraft opened an emergency door. She thought she was "opening a window", according to an airport staff. 

Her act caused the flight to be delayed for more than one hour.

The passenger was administratively detained for 10 days as her act has severely hurt aviation safety, disrupted flight operations and caused ill social impact. 

Flight HU7917 was scheduled to take off at 8:35 a.m. and actually departed from Lanzhou airport at 9:42 a.m., with a delay of one hour and seven minutes, according to VeryZhun, China's leading flight status service provider.