Passenger Opens Emergency Exit On Plane And Jumps Off Jet Airways Flight, But No One Stopped Akash Jain

If a passenger opens an emergency exit and jumps off a plane, you would think security would try and stop the person. But when 30-year-old Akash Jain leaped 15 feet to the tarmac, he was able to calmly walk into the air terminal before security was informed 35 minutes later.

In a related report by the Inquisitr, Germanwings co-pilot Andresa Lubitz has been wrongly identified in media photos due to a mishap with the girlfriend’s Twitter account.

Just in the last several months, multiple passengers have opened emergency exits, with some being angry or others simply wanting some fresh air. To give you an idea how easily it for a passenger to open an emergency exit on a Jet Airways plane, earlier in March a 42-year-old man said he pulled the door handle and accidentally unlocked and opened the emergency exit.

“I thought it was just like the handrail on the bus, which I can hold on to by myself if I find myself sitting unsteadily,” he said, according to the Straits Times, noting it was the first time he had sat near an emergency exit door on a plane.

In this new incident, Jet Airways’ Chandigarh-Mumbai flight 9W469 had just landed when Akash Jain opened the emergency exit right in the middle of the aircraft, alighted onto the wing, and jumped down to the ground. Shocked passengers informed the crew, but by time the flight personnel responded, Jain was already long gone.

Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) footage showed Jain casually strolling down the tarmac, only stopping to ask directions to the exit from a loading working another flight parked at the air terminal. All in all, it took Jain about five minutes to reach the air terminal after the passenger absconded, but Jet Airways staff did not inform security for 35 minutes. He even had time to walk around and buy a drink before he hired a rickshaw to help him leave.

According to an unnamed airport official, if a passenger open emergency exits on a plane, why did it take Jet Airways so long to call it in.

“If the incident took place after the aircraft landed, why didn’t the airline security staff inform the security agencies immediately? Why did they need 35 minutes to do so?” the airport official asked, according to Mid-Day. “The passenger took 10 minutes to leave the terminal premises and the scenario would have been completely different had the local police and security agencies at the airport been informed immediately. Without being informed, the security agencies had no reason to think that Jain was not just another passenger and prevent him from entering the arrivals building from the air side.”

Police arrested the man, but officers believe it’s possible he has a mental illness, and it’s said he ran away from home using stolen family money.

“Jain was returning to Mumbai from Pune when we nabbed him from Kherwadi,” said inspector Rajendra Nagbhire, according to the Times of India. “He had bought a ticket across the counter, so we didn’t have a lot of details on him. We had some contact numbers and got in touch with his uncle in Jalandhar, who said they had filed a missing person’s complaint for him with the local police.”

A Jet Airways spokesperson say they are “carrying out further investigations,” but experts believe it’s fairly “bizarre” that Akash Jain managed to make it so far.