Prosecutors have requested a detention warrant for a former Korean Air Lines executive who delayed a flight because she was unhappy about how she was served nuts in first class.
South Korean prosecutors have been investigating the former executive Heather Cho, daughter of the airline’s chairman, on charges of violating aviation law and another airline official for abetting perjury.
“The prosecution this morning requested a detention warrant,” Reuters reported an official at the prosecutors’ office as saying, adding that the request would be reviewed by a court.
Detention warrants are issued when the court believes there is a risk of flight or evidence tampering by suspects while investigations are ongoing.
A probe by the country’s transport ministry concluded that Cho abused flight attendants in the incident at New York’s JFK airport in New York earlier this month, and airline officials may have tried to cover up the incident.
Cho resigned from all her posts at the airline and subsidiaries and apologised after she came under intense public outrage and ridicule.
The airline’s chairman Cho Yang-ho subsequently apologised and said her daughter’s conduct was “foolish”.
The aircraft pushed away from the airport departure gate as the incident was taking place on board. The pilot then brought the aircraft back to the gate to expel the cabin crew chief, after Cho complained about being served macadamia nuts by a flight attendant in a bag and not on a dish.