Joking about bombs while aboard a plane is never a good idea – and so it has proved once again after a passenger’s ill-advised japes sparked a mass evacuation that left 10 people injured.
Some 189 passengers were waiting to take off from Borneo island Monday night when they overheard a man telling a flight attendant there was a bomb aboard their Lion Air Boeing 737. The poorly-timed comment sparked a mass panic as the passengers, who were travelling to the capital Jakarta, opened the emergency exits and poured out onto the plane’s wing.
Footage shared in a WhatsApp group by Indonesian airport staff and posted online shows people pushing and crowding each other on the wing before jumping around 10ft onto the tarmac below, with some tumbling painfully onto the ground.
The alleged prankster Frantinus Nirigi, 26, was arrested along with another passenger who opened the emergency exits. Police and airport officials subsequently searched the plane and found no explosives on board.
The flight later departed after a three-hour delay. RT has contacted the airport and the airline for comment.
