Passenger Mistakenly Opens Plane Emergency Exit Instead Of Bathroom

A passenger aboard a Pakistani airliner was pressed and needed to use the bathroom in the airplane. The passenger mistakenly opened the emergency exit door instead of the bathroom door. This mistake caused the emergency door slide to deploy.

Pakistan International Airlines Flight 702, which was prepared for an on-time departure from Manchester to Islamabad on Friday night, ended up being delayed by almost eight hours.

The woman, who ignored the seatbelt signs, mistakenly opened the door at the rear of the plane, adjacent to the toilet, while all the doors were “armed,” meaning the emergency evacuation slides were set to deploy.

“A passenger erroneously opened the emergency door causing the emergency slide to activate,” leading to all the passengers being removed from the plane, PIA said in a statement.

When a slide is deployed in error, an airline may choose to continue a flight and replace it at its home base, as PIA did, but fewer passengers are allowed to fly because of the reduced evacuation capacity.

In this case, 38 of the passengers volunteered to be placed on a later flight.