Nut rage incident

Overview

The nut rage incident took place on 5 December 2014 (local time) aboard Korean Air flight KE086 (an Airbus A380), which was about to leave John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York for Incheon. Cho Hyun-ah, Korean Air vice president (eldest daughter of Korean Air Lines chairman Cho Yang-ho of the Hanjin Group, then in charge of cabin service), was seated in first class. She scolded a flight attendant and the chief purser for serving macadamia nuts in their bag rather than on a plate, and had the plane, which was already moving away from the boarding gate, turned back so that the chief purser could be put off. It was later revealed that serving the nuts in their bag, shown to the passenger first, was in fact the correct procedure under Korean Air's rules. Sources differ on the length of the departure delay: English Wikipedia gives about 20 minutes, while Korean Wikipedia gives 46 minutes.

The incident was widely reported overseas under the name "nut rage." In Korea, it helped popularize the term "gapjil," which refers to the behavior of chaebol owners and their families toward employees.

Course of events

While the aircraft was being towed toward the runway, Cho's demand was relayed through the chief purser to the captain, who understood it only as a problem with the in-flight service and turned the plane back to the gate. Flight attendants stated that Cho shouted loudly, made the chief purser kneel, and struck the back of his hand with a service manual file.

After the incident became known, Korean Air initially issued an explanation that emphasized the chief purser's fault. Cho stepped down from her post on 8 December but kept her title as vice president, which drew criticism, and two days later she resigned as vice president as well. Chairman Cho Yang-ho also made a public apology. However, chief purser Park Chang-jin appeared on television and charged that the company had forced false statements, and it also came to light that a company executive had interfered with the investigation by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) and that a MOLIT investigator had leaked investigation details to Korean Air. MOLIT questioned Cho on 12 December, and disputes over the fairness of the investigation arose, including over the submission of the passenger list.

Trial

Prosecutors investigated Cho on charges including the aircraft route-change offense under the Aviation Security Act, assault that endangered safe flight, coercion, obstruction of business, and obstruction of official duties through deception in interfering with the MOLIT investigation. She was arrested on 30 December 2014. The central issue was whether turning back an aircraft being towed on the ground constituted a "route change." Article 42 of the Aviation Security Act provides for imprisonment of one to ten years for anyone who, by deception or force, changes the route of an aircraft in operation and thereby interferes with its normal operation. Her defense argued that a route refers to the air lane and that ground movement along a taxiway does not fall under it.