Published on : Monday, April 22, 2019
News reports said she was detained shortly afterwards. The flight, bound for Bangkok, was delayed by 78 minutes while crews retrieved the coins.
The airline later urged its future passengers to refrain from being “superstitious” on the social networking platform Weibo.
“Abide by aviation safety regulations when taking planes and don’t throw things,” the airline wrote.
The incident marks fifth such instance of a passenger in China tossing coins at a plane in 2019, some of whom were first-time fliers or travelling with first-time fliers. Of those incidents, many have resulted in the delay of the aircraft, and even detainment by police or civil lawsuits.
In early April, a passenger in northwest China was detained for 10 days after tossing three 1-yuan coins at the aircraft he was about to board. And only weeks before that, Lucky Air reportedly announced its intentions to press charges against a passenger who threw coins at a plane’s engine as part of a superstitious ritual.
“The incident caused a direct economic loss of nearly 140,000 yuan, and our company will press charges against the passenger in accordance with the law,” reps for Lucky Air said in a Feb. 22 statement concerning the latter incident.
Nobody from Southern China Airlines were not immediately available to comment on the passenger’s detainment.