Bomb threat joke causes panicked passengers to leap from plane wing (VIDEO)
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.
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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.
Video footage of the passengers panicked after one claimed to have a bomb on board during boarding, on a @LionAirID jet at #PNKairport This is the 9th #bombhoax on airplanes in Indonesia in May 2018. :( pic.twitter.com/10xtyEXLT1
— Gerry Soejatman (@GerryS) May 28, 2018
A spokesman for West Kalimantan police told AP that eight passengers were hospitalized with broken bones and head wounds following the incident. Two others sustained minor injuries.
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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.
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