--- title: KLM Passenger Fined After Mistaking Plane Door for Bathroom description: The man was escorted from the plane and held overnight canonical: https://time.com/4052954/airline-passenger-klm-bathroom/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-09-28T20:46:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:25:19.160Z og:title: Airplane Passenger Fined After Mistaking Door for Bathroom og:description: The man was escorted from the plane and held overnight og:url: https://time.com/4052954/airline-passenger-klm-bathroom/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Airplane Passenger Fined After Mistaking Door for Bathroom twitter:description: The man was escorted from the plane and held overnight twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Airline Passenger Fined After Mistaking Plane Door for Bathroom by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Sep 28, 2015 8:46 PM UTC by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Sep 28, 2015 8:46 PM UTC A passenger on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines was detained and fined after allegedly [trying to open the plane door](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/aviation/11894331/Passenger-who-tried-to-open-plane-door-at-30000ft-thought-it-was-a-toilet.html) during a flight from Edinburgh to Amsterdam; he says he believed the door led to the bathroom. James Gray tells _The Telegraph_ that touching the door’s handle at 30,000 feet got him escorted from the plane when it landed, detained overnight and fined €600 ($674). He says KLM then banned him from the airline for five years, forcing him to book his return flight with another company. KLM said only that it had turned a passenger over to the authorities because of “misbehavior.” Gray maintains it was all a misunderstanding and says he would never intentionally try to open the door of a plane. \[[_The Telegraph_](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/aviation/11894331/Passenger-who-tried-to-open-plane-door-at-30000ft-thought-it-was-a-toilet.html)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4052954/airline-passenger-klm-bathroom/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4052954/airline-passenger-klm-bathroom/"},"headline":"Airline Passenger Fined After Mistaking Plane Door for Bathroom","datePublished":"2015-09-28T20:46:01.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:25:19.160Z","description":"The man was escorted from the plane and held overnight","url":"https://time.com/4052954/airline-passenger-klm-bathroom/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Airlines","Bizarre"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sarah Begley","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4052954/airline-passenger-klm-bathroom/","name":"Airline Passenger Fined After Mistaking Plane Door for Bathroom"}}]}] ```