China Eastern Airlines denies CNN reporter’s post

China Eastern Airlines denied a claim that a CNN reporter posted on his personal microblog Tuesday about how a passenger was forced to delete a photograph of another passenger smoking in the first-class cabin.

The reporter, Steven Jiang, posted an account of the incident on his verified Sina Weibo account, StevenCNN, which identified him as a Beijing-based reporter for CNN, the US-based television news network.

The post said a passenger onboard a China Eastern flight on December 2 was smoking after the plane took off from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport, but crew members did nothing to stop him, despite safety rules that prohibit smoking.

Another passenger took a photo of the smoker with a mobile phone and was immediately ordered by security guards to delete the picture. After the flight landed in Beijing, the passenger was not allowed to depart until several strong mysterious men forced the passenger to delete the photo.

The post had been forwarded about 17,000 times by press time Tuesday. The Global Times could not reach Jiang Tuesday for comment.

Many bloggers commented on the post, suspicious about the identity of the smoking passenger. A microblogger called Dapengkantianxia speculated that the smoker might have been a high official because it is impossible for passengers to bring lighters on board.

China Eastern Airlines said it had confirmed with the flight's crew members that nothing like what Jiang described had happened.

When asked whether there was a dispute on the flight, the airline's spokesperson refused to answer.

Fang Daguo, a district official from Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, threw his luggage at a stewardess on a China Southern Airline flight in August after she asked him to move it to a different location. The incident was widely spread on the Internet.