- National outrage sparked when high-profile traveller Li Yaling shares details of incident on social media
- Employee on long-term sick leave disrupts flight to Beijing but airline says she is a private traveller
The woman paced about the cabin as the plane taxied down the runway and continued to make a scene until the flight approached Beijing. She was seen making a call, asking for the police to be notified that the passengers had “attacked” her and “endangered aviation safety” and to come and take them away.
The passengers were stopped by the crew and removed by the police, who took them to the airport police station where they were held for seven hours before being released with a warning, according to Li’s post.
“I want to ask Air China what the position of the Air China supervisor is,” Li wrote on Weibo. “Is she independent or your employee? What legal rights does she have? Has she abused her power, if any?”
Li’s post shocked internet users who reacted with sympathy. Some posted video clips or their own accounts of the same woman making similar false accusations on buses, subway trains and other flights, leading to similar problems for individual passengers, as well as travel delays.
Li later said on Weibo she was contacted by the airline on Saturday afternoon and told the woman was a former flight attendant who had been on sick leave since pouring hot water on a passenger more than 10 years before and had subsequently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Li said she felt sympathy for mental health patients but not for the woman, who she said had apparently endangered public safety on flights several times. Li also demanded compensation for paying a high price to travel in business class, only to suffer two hours of verbal abuse.
Article 34 of China’s civil aviation rules for domestic transportation of passengers and baggage stipulates mentally ill patients or passengers whose health conditions may endanger themselves or affect the safety of other passengers shall not be carried.
However, in the eyes of the psychiatric profession mental health patients have the same right to fly as anyone else, as long as they are not posing any threat to others.
“The law on mental health protects some basic rights of mental patients and they are entitled to all rights of citizens, as long as they are not in an acute onset of mental illness,” said Ye Minjie vice-president of Kangning Hospital, which is affiliated to Wenzhou Medical University
“We can’t treat them as if they were secondary citizens or deprive them of basic rights just because they have had episodes before,” he said.
Source: SCMP
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