On Jan. 12, West Air flight PN6272 was taxiing to the gate at Jiangbei Airport in Chongqing, China, when a passenger decided, for no discernible reason, to open an emergency exit door, thereby deploying the evacuation slide.
His impulsiveness had precedent. Two days earlier, members of a tour group on a China Eastern flight in Kunming, furious over flight delays, pulled open emergency exits on their plane just as it was about to take-off for Beijing. And their madness was preceded, in turn, by a Xiamen air passenger who on Dec. 14 opened an emergency exit during taxi so that he might "get some fresh air," and on Dec. 12 by a China Eastern passenger who opened — yes — an emergency exit on a parked, just-arrived aircraft so that he could "get off the plane faster."
Taken alone, none of these incidents would rise to the level of news. Taken collectively (and in combination with a lengthy history of similar incidents), they suggest that China is facing a crisis of airborne sanity and civility. The Chinese government itself seems to have embraced that framing: the China's National Tourism Administration has created a "National Uncivilized Traveler Record" that it now distributes to travel-related businesses around the country. (The group who opened emergency exits on January 10 has already been placed on it.)