Man pulls on exit
handle in flight

The pilot says passengers
were not in any danger

An elderly passenger on a Hawaiian Airlines flight from San Diego thought he was opening a bathroom door.

Instead, the man was pulling on the handle of an exit door, spooking fellow passengers and setting off an alarm that prompted the pilot to evacuate the first-class section for about an hour.

The plane landed safely at about 11:20 a.m. Wednesday.

A fellow passenger described him as an elderly Caucasian man, in his 80s or 90s, traveling with an elderly woman.

A Hawaiian Airlines pilot said it would be impossible to open the door of a pressurized cabin in flight.

"I wasn't too comfortable with the fact that I know what could happen if the doors open at that altitude," said Honolulu resident Daniel De Carlo, who was seated in first class on Hawaiian Flight 16. "Who knows what could have been sucked out of there? ... Who knows if those seat belts would have held us?"

Hawaiian Airlines spokesman Keoni Wagner said the man's actions did not trigger any part of the door except a sensor that warns the cockpit the door is armed and that the slide is ready if the door is opened.

"There was no consequence -- the door did not open, there was no loss of cabin pressure or any of that stuff," he said.

De Carlo said after he and other first-class passengers moved to the rear of the plane, the captain announced: "Don't worry. The worst that would happen is the door would pop open when we land and the sliding chute would inflate."