A South Korean passenger who forced open an emergency exit door on an Asiana Airlines jet just before landing walked away with a suspended sentence thanks to mental health issues, but the civil courts delivered a brutal financial knockout.

The 32-year-old man, identified only as Lee, was on a May 26, 2023, flight from Jeju to Daegu when he pulled the lever and swung the door open at roughly 700 feet. Powerful winds immediately blasted into the cabin, terrifying passengers and sending 12 of them to the hospital with breathing problems and hyperventilation.

Shocking footage captured inside the plane shows the nightmare: the door wide open with bright light and wind rushing in, passengers ducking and bracing as chaos erupts. The plane still managed to land safely, door flapping in the breeze.

Lee told police he felt “suffocated” and just wanted to get off the plane quickly. Prosecutors pushed for up to 10 years behind bars under aviation security laws.

Instead, a judge gave him three years in prison, suspended for five years, plus probation and mandatory mental treatment after recognizing his impaired mental state.

But the real hammer dropped in civil court.

Last year, a Daegu judge ordered Lee to personally pay Asiana Airlines 727 million won, more than $523,000, for the structural damage he caused to the aircraft.

As a direct result of the stunt, Asiana immediately stopped selling certain emergency exit seats (specifically seats like 26A and 31A) on its Airbus A321 fleet. The airline created a buffer to keep passengers farther from the door levers as a permanent safety precaution.

The wildest detail? Physics is what made the whole thing possible.

At cruising altitude, the cabin pressure difference slams the door shut with roughly 24,000 pounds of force, a team of bodybuilders couldn’t open it. Only once the plane dropped low enough for pressures to equalize near landing could Lee actually yank it open.

The viral video of the incident has been making the rounds again, leaving viewers stunned by both the brazen act and the lopsided punishment.