A PASSENGER aboard a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight accidentally opened the emergency exit door recently while hunting for the bathroom, causing a seven-hour delay.

The plane was sitting on the runway waiting to take off when the incident took place. The woman got up from her seat — defying the seat belt signs, which were on — and opened the emergency exit mistaking it for the bathroom door. As she opened it, an evacuation slide deployed from under the door.

“The PIA flight, PK702, from Manchester to Islamabad, was delayed by seven hours,” said a PIA spokesperson. “The departure was delayed when a passenger erroneously opened the emergency exit causing the emergency chute to activate. As per standard operating procedure, the PIA had to offload nearly 40 passengers and their luggage.”

The flight eventually left many hours later with a much lighter passenger load. Thirty-eight people were pushed to another even later flight because, with the slide gone, the plane’s evacuation capacity had been lowered.

Passengers were placated with food and others received an overnight hotel stay and transportation. The delay of the flight also led to a domino effect of later departures, for which the airline apologized on Twitter.

“We regret the delay of PK771, which is an unfortunate consequence of the delay of PK702,” PIA tweeted. “We strongly urge passengers to follow security instructions as such mishaps result in inconvenience of hundreds of other passengers.”

(SD-Agencies)