Posted on 07/02/2002 1:42:43 PM PDT by hitthefan
New flier tries to open emergency door to spit
BEIJING - A Chinese man who was flying for the first time gave the flight crew a scare when he attempted to open the emergency exit because he wanted to spit.
Barely a minute after the China Southern Airlines plane took off from the southern city of Shenzhen on Wednesday, its emergency exit warning light began to flash. Flight crew who rushed to investigate saw a man trying to open the emergency door.
In fact, he had already opened the cover plate of the escape slide and was about to push the door open when a passenger stopped him.
The passenger had noticed something was wrong when he saw the man at the emergency exit and his suspicion helped avert a disaster, the Apple Daily said yesterday.
A stewardess on the Shanghai-bound flight had earlier taken particular notice of the unidentified man as he seemed not to have travelled on a plane before.
She even took pains to explain to him the safety features and instruct him on how to use the emergency exits.
After the scare, when the stewardess asked him to explain his dangerous act, he said he had wanted to spit.
The man was arrested after the plane landed in Shanghai.
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