New Aviation Threat: Superstitious Elderly Chinese Travelers

If airlines do not have enough on their hands with Al Qaeda and changing weather patterns, it now has to face a new threat: superstitious elderly Chinese travelers.  For the second time in weeks, a flight was suspended after an elderly Chinese woman threw coins into an airplane engine for good luck . . . and engine failure.  The Lucky Air flight was fortunately halted after other understandably alarmed passengers asked for the metal debris to be removed from their engine.

In June, an 80-year-old Chinese woman stopped a China Southern Airlines flight with the same practice.

In this case, the 76-year-old woman in Anqing decided to get an added advantage on Luck.  The flight to Kunming was grounded overnight as a safety precaution and the woman was arrested. It is not known if she would be charged.

Such cases are hard in any country.  Clearly, she did not wish any harm.  To the contrary, she was trying to bring luck.  However, her superstition led to the grounding of a flight and inconvenience to many.