The former Korean Airlines executive who was jailed for her tantrum over being served nuts in an inappropriate manner walked free Friday, after an appeal court suspended her sentence.
Cho Hyun-ah, also known as Heather, was five months through a 12-month sentence for violating South Korea’s aviation law, handed down after she forced a plane to return to its gate at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport in order to have the plane’s purser thrown off.
The case caused uproar in Korea, where Ms. Cho’s behavior had been seen of typical of the high-handed attitude of the ruling class towards ordinary people. Ms. Cho is the eldest daughter of KAL’s chairman Cho Yang-Ho.
Reuters reported judge Kim Sang-Hwan as saying that: “The defendant would have had a chance to reflect sincerely on the mental anguish she caused in the victims during the five months she spent in the darkest place in society while in detention and away from family.”
Ms. Cho resigned all her posts in the wake of the outcry and issued a public apology in an attempt to forestall being put behind bars.