Sun Country Passenger Jumps Out Of Boeing 737 to Escape Arrest in Minneapolis

A Sun Country passenger on the run from the law opens an emergency exit...and becomes an unruly passenger.

One dangerous way to flee from an arrest is to open a Boeing 737 emergency exit. Such is what happened on Sun Country Airlines flight on July 9th, when a 44-year-old man decided jumping out of the plane in Minneapolis would help him evade arrest.

The escape attempt

Sun Country Airlines flight SY346 made a relatively on-time flight arrival from Orlando International Airport (MCO) to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) using a Boeing 737-800, registered N815SY. However, one passenger onboard was particularly desperate to get off and decided to open an emergency exit at MSP. This was after, according to KARE 11 and KSTP-TV, the 44-year-old man learned law enforcement was waiting at the gate to execute arrest warrants for suspicion of felony domestic assault, drug dealing, trespassing, and felony violating a no-contact order, among more charges.

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The passenger opened the emergency exit, scampered onto the 737-800 wing, and jumped off. However, this only bought him 40 minutes, when airport staff found him hiding inside an airline food service truck and promptly handed him over to law enforcement.

In a statement, Sun Country Airlines said of the incident,

Unruly passenger rate still of concern

This incident has been included in the FAA's unruly passenger measured risk rate, which currently stands at 1.7 incidents per every 10,000 flights. Law enforcement and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) remain concerned about the growth in unruly passenger incidents, even though numbers have fallen substantially since 2021.

As of June 25th, the year has had 890 incidents from unruly passengers. Meanwhile, the FAA handles an average of 45,000 daily flights. So the risk is rather small that your flight will have an unruly passenger onboard, but one incident is one incident too many, and nearly four daily is a cause for concern.

Many such incidents are referred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for investigation and referral to US Assistant Attorneys General for prosecution. Yes, if you break the law in flight you risk jail time, fines, and most certainly a lifetime ban for flying on the airline, all part of the FAA's Zero Tolerance approach adopted post-pandemic.

Why refrain from opening the emergency exits when at the gate?

While we're always instructed to never touch an aircraft door handle unless an evacuation is ordered, this is for some key reasons. First, an airport tarmac is a busy place with airplanes and ground vehicles moving about. The author went on a photographic assignment at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and can attest to this. It is very easy to get in the way of airplanes or airport personnel moving about with heavy equipment, meaning communication and awareness is key.

Second, emergency exits are for emergencies only. As such, emergency exits should only be opened at the direction of an airline employee. Cabin crew are trained and retrained in how to properly egress an aircraft in both normal situations and emergency situations. One can read a guide how cabin crew handle evacuations.

Third, although this incident did not trigger the emergency slide (the doors were unarmed at the time of opening) – there is the very real risk of incurring a $30,000 claim by an upset airline having to repair the damage of an unintentional slide deployment. This is in addition to any physical harm you might suffer by trying to evacuate using the slide.