Today, we bring you MBC’s exclusive coverage of an incident last week in which a man in his 30s forced open an airplane door.

At the time of the incident, Asiana Airlines claimed that they subdued the man, who was trying to jump out of the emergency door, and handed him over to the police shortly after landing.

However, contrary to Asiana’s account, the man was not restrained at the time and continued to walk out of the airport.

Byung-cheol Shim reported exclusively on the story.

◀ Report ▶

At 12:39 p.m. on the 26th, an Asiana Airlines passenger plane landed at Daegu Airport with the emergency door open.

Immediately after landing, a passenger in his 30s right next to the emergency door unbuckled his seatbelt and tried to jump out.

At this time, crew members and passengers together stopped the man.

[Asiana Airlines official].
“A flight attendant opened the emergency exit door with a guest and restrained him from getting off… That’s all I’ll say.”

He added that they handed the man who opened the emergency door 213 meters above the ground directly to the police in accordance with aviation law.

[Asiana Airlines official]
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re supposed to be protecting him until we hand him over to the police, so we called the police, and when they came, we handed him over.”

But this man was seen in a strange place.

The DOT says the plane landed at 12:39.

About 10 minutes later, around 12:50, passengers began to disembark, and at 1:03 p.m., a man in a black hat was spotted sitting at a bus stop outside the Daegu Airport building.

The same man who opened the emergency door, which Asiana Airlines immediately handed over to the police, came out of the building.

Shortly after landing, a passenger who had stopped the man with a flight attendant as he tried to jump off the plane recognized him from across the street.

[Kwon Geun-hwan/Asiana Airlines passenger]
“That fainting passenger was sitting on a bench, and it was the same bench where the airport buses stop, the city tour buses stop, so why is he sitting there?”

That’s not the airline’s story, which is that he was immediately arrested and handed over.

When the reporter presented the먹튀검증 circumstances under which the man was outside the airport and alone, Asiana changed its story.

[Asiana Airlines representative].
“At that time, we didn’t realize that he had opened the door, we just thought that he was in a strange state because he was right in front of the emergency exit, and he was so frightened that he tried to jump out, and now the flight attendant caught him…”

We checked with the police and found that Asiana first called the police around 1:20pm.

That was 30 minutes after 12:50 p.m., when passengers began exiting the plane.

We can only assume that the airline didn’t realize who opened the emergency door until the man was out of the airport.

[Kwon Geun-hwan/Asiana Airlines passenger]
“Obviously it was a rescue situation, it wasn’t a restraint situation, (the man) is lying down as you can see in the picture, on his stomach… and the flight attendant said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry…'”

How the man was arrested by police was also a bit of a coincidence.

An Asiana Airlines employee happened to be at the bus stop and asked the man if he was okay, and when the man suddenly asked what would happen if he activated the emergency door lever, the employee noticed something strange and called the police.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport is conducting an on-site investigation to see if Asiana’s response was appropriate, and police are considering whether to add injury charges against the man along with violations of the Aviation Security Act.

I’m Shim Byung-cheol of MBC News.