A flight headed to Melbourne was forced to turn around after a woman tried to open the aircraft door at 30,000 ft as the plane flew over the Indian Ocean.
Budget airline JetStar said in a statement on Tuesday that flight JQ-34 had to return Denpasar airport in Bali after a 'disruptive passenger attempted to open one of the aircraft doors' on Monday night.
The passenger was also 'abusive' to airline staff, the statement said.
Footage posted to social media shows a woman in the back of the aircraft arguing with cabin crew as they try to calm her down.
'Sit down', one member of staff can be heard telling the woman, to which she responds: 'Call the police right now'.
The clip is thought to have been recorded before the woman allegedly tried to force open the door.
Once the situation was under control, the flight crew made an announcement to all passengers about what had happened and why the flight had turned around.
In a separate video, the plane's captain can be heard telling passenger's through the aircraft's speakers that a woman had 'physically tried to open the door'.
The incident happened after the unnamed woman got into argument with cabin crew over seating arrangements.
The airline confirmed that the flight had to be turned around after a 'disruptive passenger attempted to open one of the aircraft doors' on Monday night.
'She opened the door handle, we got a door warning at the front of the aircraft', he continued.
'The safest course of action was to come back to the airport'.
According to flight tracking site Flightradar24, the plane turned around over the Indian Ocean about one hour into the flight.
'The safety and welfare of our customers and crew is our top priority and we thank them for the way they responded to the situation,' the airline said in its statement.
'This sort of unacceptable behaviour will never be tolerated on our flights.'
The flight was cancelled and JetStar said it would provide customers with an alternative flight.
Aussie reality TV star Brooke Jowett was aboard the flight from Bali to Melbourne, which left at about 8.40pm local time Monday night with more than 200 passengers onboard.
Sharing a series of clips on her Instagram story, the Survivor All Star alum recounted the horrifying incident.
'Good morning everybody, I had a lovely three hour sleep,' Ms Jowett said.
'We got back to a hotel at about 1am after our lovely night, and our scare on the flight.
'Turns out the reason behind the lady wanting to open the door is because she wanted to sit in a different row and have a chair that could recline.
'So she decided to try to open the doors, which apparently triggered something to do with the emergency slide and yeah, it was a big bloody big panic, it was very, very scary but we’re fine.'
She said the woman was arguing with the Jetstar staff about her seat and that it ‘escalated’.
Flight JQ-34 had been in the air for about two hours and was over the Indian Ocean when the passenger attempted to open the door and it was turned around.
The flight had to return to Denpasar airport in Bali.
Survivor star Brooke Jowett was returning with her fiancé Chris Cavanagh and young daughter on the flight from Bali when she was caught up in the terrifying incident.
The passengers after they landed back at Denpasar airport late on Monday night.
'She was very unhappy and decided she wanted to get off, but we were more than an hour into the flight over the ocean and, yeah, we all got told to put our seatbelts on immediately. Very freaky,' she said.
'One of the guys who was sitting in front of us was down near the toilets and he pulled her away from the door as she was trying to open it.
'He was an off-duty police officer apparently, so he saved the day. Thank God for that.
'But yeah, don’t know what would have happened otherwise. I know there’s a few security measures, but it wasn’t fun.'
The passenger was removed from the aircraft and taken into custody by local authorities in Bali.
Dr David Birch, a Senior Lecturer in Aerospace Engineering at Surrey University, said the massive difference in air pressure between the inside of the cabin and outside made it almost impossible to open a door at cruising altitude.
Opening a door at that altitude could theoretically cause objects or people to be sucked out of the aircraft and for temperature and oxygen levels to plummet, but that the force required would be far above what a person could manage.
'The pressure-lock only really starts to work at higher altitudes,' he previously told the BBC.
The doors are also 'armed' while on a flight as a security measure and must be 'disarmed' by the pilot to allow them to open.