In an era of ultra-security on airplanes, a pilot for Chinese airline Air Guilin has been grounded "for life" after allowing a woman into the cockpit - and a photo emerged of her sitting in the captain's seat.
The photo appeared on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, sparking a social media backlash.
The woman even captioned the post, saying "[I am] super thankful to the pilot! I am really so excited."
The photo was spotted by a Chinese aviation blogger on Sunday. The blogger identified that the image was taken on an Air Guilin plane mid-flight.
The reaction was immediate.
"This is putting passengers' lives in the entire aircraft at risk," one person commented.
Said another: "How can an aviation professional not understand the basics of air safety?"
Air Guilin confirmed the incident took place on Jan. 4 during a flight from Guilin to Yangzhou, though it only came to light this past weekend when the blogger posted the photo.
In a statement on Monday, the airline said it had suspended the unnamed pilot "for life" while other members of the flight crew had been banned indefinitely pending further investigation.
"(Air Guilin has a) zero-tolerance policy towards any unprofessional and improper acts that could endanger air safety. We will enhance our rigorous safety guidelines, to avoid incidents like this from happening again," the airline said in a statement.
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