Bangkok:
Thai police said Friday they had charged a Canadian who tried to open the door of a plane awaiting takeoff and said someone tried to kill him.
A 40-year-old man tried to open the emergency door of a Bangkok-bound Thai Airways flight from the northern city of Chiang Mai on Wednesday.
Police said the incident led to delays on more than a dozen flights.
“He was charged with two counts: injuring other people on board the plane and failing to follow the instructions of cabin crew,” Nattawut Noisorn, deputy head of investigations, told AFP at the Phu Ping Ratchaniwet police station.
“He told us he opened the door because someone on the plane was trying to kill him. He was very panicked.
Police check to see if he used substances or suffered from mental illness before boarding the plane.
Watcharapon Pethsurp, who was on board the plane, described the tragedy.
“I was sitting at the back of the plane and heard strong winds and screaming coming from the front. It was chaos,” he told AFP.
“The man was screaming, saying a man in a black suit was trying to kill him.”
Following the incident, Thai Airways issued a statement saying the flight took off more than three hours later than scheduled.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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