Lovefly® Blog - Woman who tried to open door of plane during Jet2 flight from Stansted jailed for two years

This story emerged recently in the UK of Chloe Haines fighting the crew and trying to open the door in-flight.

This would have been a very scary moment for the passengers on this flight.  As a result of this, the judge has decided that she be jailed for two years for endangering a flight.

An except from the article:

"Prosecutor Michael Crimp said Haines claimed she "blacked out and didn't really remember what happened" after mixing alcohol with medication.

He said she had "lunged" at a door handle on the plane, which had 206 people on board.

One passenger later told police he "really feared she would open the door" and "honestly thought I was going to die", Mr Crimp said.

Haines said "I want to die" and "I'm going to kill you all" as cabin crew and passengers restrained her.

"She was kicking and punching," Mr Crimp said."

Chloe Haines Jailed for two years

Here is the full article

There are a couple of reassuring messages we would like to share for those of you with a fear of flying.

The door cannot be opened mid flight as it is pressurized*. This means that there is so much pressure on the door, it would be impossible for the strongest person to open that door.  The door is not pressurized on the ground which is why there are always crew manning the door when it can be opened.  The doors are made in such a way in that they are bigger than the hole they go into. They are 'plug' type doors which means that when pressurized, they are locked into position. 
The crew are trained to restrain passengers when necessary.  The crew could have just let Chloe pull on the door and it would not have opened. However, crew would never do that and would have restrained her.  This is important for many reasons. One of those is that most passengers don't know the door can't be opened and so would experience huge anxiety watching her pulling at it.


It is a shame that if Chloe did this due to a fear of flying...  However, it is quite right that the incident is dealt with strongly by the authorities. 







Take care,

Lovefly® Team




* Pressurisation basically means that the aircraft is filled with more air molecules than outside.  This enables us to breath at heights where we could not naturally.