Charged with violating aviation security law
Convicted on basis of crew testimony, cigarette butts
500,000-won fine upheld on appeal; ruling now final
A passenger who smoked an e-cigarette on a flight was fined 500,000 won ($377) — a penalty the appeals court upheld despite his repeated insistence that he had never vaped.
The Incheon District Court's Criminal Division 1-2, presided over by Judge Jeong Woo-young, rejected the defendant's appeal in August, maintaining the 500,000-won fine handed down at the first trial, according to legal sources.
The defendant, identified only as A, boarded a flight from Bangkok, Thailand, bound for Incheon International Airport in May 2024 and was charged with smoking an e-cigarette in the aircraft lavatory. Under the Aviation Security Act, smoking of any kind is strictly prohibited on board.
A denied the charges throughout the proceedings, claiming he had never vaped and that there was no evidence against him.
The court was unconvinced. Although no closed-circuit television footage captured him smoking, the cigarette butt found in the lavatory trash bin and testimony from a flight attendant who witnessed the incident served as the basis for the ruling.
The first trial found him guilty in July 2025.
The first-instance court noted that a flight attendant had testified smelling e-cigarette odor coming through the gap in the lavatory door while A was inside, and that A had refused the attendant's request to show his e-cigarette.
A claimed the cigarette butt had been in his trouser pocket — left over from before the flight — and that he had simply disposed of it in the lavatory bin during the journey. The court found that explanation hard to accept.
A appealed, maintaining his innocence, but the appeals court reached the same conclusion.
The appeals court noted that two e-cigarette butts had been found in two separate lavatories on the aircraft. One lavatory had been closed off after staff detected an e-cigarette smell, and an identical butt was subsequently found in a second lavatory.
"Given that two e-cigarette butts were collected from two different lavatories, A's explanation is even less persuasive," the court said, and went on to say that "considering the flight attendant's testimony that a strong e-cigarette smell was coming from A when he exited the lavatory, the first court's judgment was justified."
The ruling is now final. A did not challenge the appeals court decision.
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