After visiting the toilet on a domestic flight in India, a passenger got trapped inside when the door wouldn’t open.
He ended up spending most of the flight inside the toilet — a duration of about one hour.
Source: @HateDetectors on X
The airline has reportedly apologised to him and will offer him a full refund.
The incident took place on Tuesday (16 Jan) on a flight from Mumbai to Bengaluru operated by SpiceJet Airlines, reported the Times of India (TOI).
According to FlightRadar24, flight SG268 takes just over an hour.
Source: @spicejetairlines on Instagram
The flight on 16 Jan, which used a Boeing 737, took off at 2.13am and landed after a flight time of one hour and seven minutes.
Just after take-off, a passenger sitting in seat 14D entered the toilet.
When he tried to leave, however, he found that he couldn’t open the door.
He made frantic calls from inside, which alerted the crew. They then tried to open the door from outside but failed to do so.
A short video circulating on X, taken by him from inside the toilet, shows the man trying unsuccessfully to push the door open from the inside.
Source: @HateDetectors on X
The door handle also rotates, indicating that the crew is trying to open the door from the outside.
The crew resorted to slipping him a handwritten note under the door to calm him down.
In the note, they told the passenger that they’d tried their best to open the door but could not.
Urging the man not to panic, they assured him that the plane would be landing in a “few minutes”. Thus, they added:
Please close the commode lid and sit on it and secure yourself.
An engineer would come to rescue him once the plane lands, the crew also said.
After the plane landed at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru, engineers boarded the plane.
They broke open the door, finally rescuing the man who had by then spent almost the entire flight trapped in the toilet.
An airport official told TOI that the poor passenger was “totally traumatised due to claustrophobia”.
The man, a 37-year-old software professional, later told TOI that he was “thrown around the toilet” as the plane landed.
After the door was broken down some 20 minutes post-landing, he emerged bruised with blurry vision, he said.
He also claimed that he wasn’t given medical assistance after being freed, but given just a bottle of water and many apologies.
SpiceJet, however, was quoted as saying in a statement that the passenger “received immediate medical support”.
The crew also provided assistance and guidance to him, it added.
Apologising for the inconvenience caused to the passenger, it said they would provide him with a full refund.
The passenger, in turn, said he was given a voucher worth 5,000 rupees (S$81), but declined it.
He plans to sue the airline and make a complaint to India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
Also read: Snake Slithers Above Overhead Compartments On AirAsia Flight, Cabin Crew Catches It In Plastic Bag
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Featured image adapted from @HateDetectors on X and Shiv Aroor on X.
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