Passenger gets suspended jail term for trying to open plane's emergency door at 37,000 feet

A South Korean court has handed a suspended prison term to a passenger who lifted an emergency door lever on a Bangkok-Daegu flight at 37,000 feet (about 11,300 meters).

The Daegu District Court said on Oct. 19 it had sentenced the passenger, a 38-year-old surnamed Park, to four months in prison, suspended for two years, and 80 hours of community service for violating the Aviation Security Act, Yonhap news agency reported.

Park was charged with grabbing the lever-type handle on the right-side emergency door of a T'way Air plane and lifting it on Nov. 22, 2025, as the aircraft flew between Hong Kong and Taiwan. The door did not open.

The airline has since been renamed Trinity Airways.

The court said Park's culpability was not minor, given the law's purpose of ensuring aviation safety and the nature of the act.

But it took into account that the door had almost no chance of opening, so the act posed little real danger, and that Park lifted the lever only once without further attempts to open it.

The act caused some disruption to operations on the flight, news agency Newsis reported.

The Aviation Security Act allows prison terms of up to 10 years for such acts, the Daegu daily Maeil Shinmun said, recalling a May 2023 case in which a man in his 30s opened an emergency door on an Asiana Airlines plane approaching Daegu Airport.

Some passengers on that flight were taken to hospital with breathing difficulties, the newspaper said.