Gray maintains it was all a misunderstanding and says he would never intentionally try to open the door of a plane.
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Cape Town – A passenger on board a KLM flight attempted to open the plane door in mid flight after he mistook the door for the entrance to the lavatory.
As soon as the flight landed at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, James Gray was placed in a detention center overnight.
“The crew told me to stay in my seat and I was to be arrested when the plane landed”, Gray said. The police came and arrested me. They barred him from boarding, and Gray had to have a friend wire him money just to take another airline out of there.
James Gray was escorted from the plane by police in Amsterdam and arrested after the airline claimed he tried to open the door at 30,000ft.
“I was charged and fined €600”, he said.
“I realise the danger of that sort of thing”, he said in an interview with the Daily Mail. The differential between the pressures inside and outside the door means that there’s plenty of force keeping it closed, even if Gray had managed to somehow turn the latch.
A spokeswoman for Schiphol Airport and a spokesperson for the Royal Dutch Border Police both refused to comment.
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KLM confirmed a passenger was handed over to the authorities due to “misbehaviour”.
