Passengers mistakenly open plane's emergency exit after in-flight incident

Passengers who mistakenly thought they were being told to evacuate a flight have opened a plane’s emergency exit and climbed onto the aircraft’s wing.

A report recently released by Ireland's Air Accident Investigation Unit explored the incident, which occurred on a flight from Ireland to London in 2017.

After taking off from Cork Airport, the flight crew noticed “strong and persistent” fumes in the plane.

Mayday was declared and the plane returned to the Irish airport where it was met by emergency services.

The plane was taxied to a parking stand and when the crew couldn’t locate the source of the smell, the captain told passengers they would be required to make a “rapid disembarkation”.

Passengers on board misinterpreted the command, which just meant to exit the plane quickly.

Instead they opened the plane’s emergency exit and deployed the escape slides.

The plane’s emergency hatches received minor damage during the incident, but no injuries were reported.

Although, one passenger was later taken to a hospital after complaining about feeling unwell.

The cause of the smell has since been determined to be fumes from the avionics bay blower.