A Citilink plane headed to Batam from Jakarta had to make an emergency landing yesterday after an unattended child attempted to open an emergency exit mid-flight.
The plane made the unscheduled stop in Palembang’s Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II Airport at 4:05pm after the flight’s captain decided to take the precautionary measure following the incident.
According to Citilink, the child was not under the supervision of their parents when they detached the safety cover to the latch of an emergency exit door.
Thankfully, the door did not open mid-flight.
“The cabin crew immediately sought an explanation from the child’s parents. The parents were also required to make a statement to the authorities at Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II,” Citilink Corporate Secretary and CSR VP Diah Suryani said in a statement published yesterday.
No sanctions have been announced for the parents thus far.
Under current COVID-19 protocols, children under the age of 12 are not permitted to travel by air.
Diah said the child in this incident had received official dispensation to travel by the COVID-19 Task Force at Soekarno-Hatta Airport.
The plane later took off from Palembang and touched down in Batam at 7:52pm.
