Korean Air heiress gets one year in prison over her “nut rage”

Posted on : 2015-02-13 16:07 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Court rules that Cho Hyun-ah’s forcing a flight to change its path constitutes a violation of aviation law
 Feb. 12. (by Kim Seong-gwang
Feb. 12. (by Kim Seong-gwang

Cho Hyun-ah, 41, was sentenced to one year in prison. The former vice president of Korean Air was charged with causing a disturbance onboard Korean Air Flight A380, departing from New York, and for forcing the plane to return to the gate, which represents a change to the flight plan under the Aviation Security Act.

“This was an incident that denied human dignity, human value, and human decency. If the defendant had had the least consideration for other people - if she had not viewed the employees as her slaves - this could never have occurred,” the judge said.

In the view of Oh Seong-woo, the judge who sentenced Cho to a year in prison on Feb. 12, the root cause of this incident - triggered by Cho’s irritation with the way a flight attendant served her some complimentary nuts - was the twisted and despotic management practiced by the family members of the owners of South Korea’s chaebol. Citing the testimony of a passenger in first class who said that Cho had put the plane in reverse as if it were her own private vehicle, the judge said that her actions “lacked common sense.”

On the morning of her sentencing, Cho submitted one more letter of apology, in addition to the six letters she had already submitted. But in the end, she was unable to avoid prison time.

On Thursday, the judge read aloud from one of the letters that Cho had written, which is unusual in a criminal case. “Park Chang-jin [the purser on the flight] and everyone else all have their own families who love them. I am deeply ashamed and sincerely apologize to the victims and their families. [. . .] During the 30 days I spent in jail, the only things I was given were a roll of toilet paper, utensils, soap, and two pairs of socks. Other detainees let me borrow their shampoo and body wash and shared their snacks. I was thankful for those. What I was even more thankful for was how they didn’t ask me anything about what happened. They were being considerate, as I see it. That’s a characteristic I lacked.” Cho wept as the judge read her letter aloud.

The judge neatly resolved the vexing legal debate about the plane’s return on the apron. Cho‘s lawyers had argued that though the plane had moved in reverse for 17m on the apron, this did not in fact constitute a change of flight path.

“The phrase ’in flight‘ as defined by the Aviation Security Act takes effect the moment the doors are shut on the plane. It includes taxiing on the ground before takeoff. Interpreting ’flight path‘ more narrowly to mean an aviation route at least 200m or more above the ground clashes with the reason the Aviation Security Act was enacted to begin with,” the judge said.

The court concluded that the arguments made by Cho’s lawyers would create a blind spot in the law, eliminating the legal grounds for prosecuting someone who forces a plane that is still on the ground to move backward.

The judge also rejected the argument of Cho’s lawyers that the pilot of the plane had made the final decision to return to the gate. “The flight crew seem to have returned to the gate because they were intimidated at the time by [Cho’s] power and authority. When Cho exercised her authority over Park, she was effectively exercising it against the pilot as well,” the judge said.

Cho had claimed that she did not realize the plane was moving, but the judge rejected this argument, concluding that she must have felt the motion of the plane because of the law of inertia.

An executive at Korean Air named Yeo, 57, who was charged with systematically destroying evidence on orders from Cho, was sentenced to eight months in prison. An official at the Ministry of Land, Transport, and Maritime Affairs surnamed Kim, 54, who was charged with leaking information about a ministry investigation to Yeo, was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for one year.

 staff photographer)
staff photographer)

 

By Oh Seung-hoon, staff reporter

 

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