Mon, Nov 21, 2011
But It Turned Out To Just Be A Jammed Door
Even the pilot has to go once in a while, but on a recent
Chautauqua Airlines Delta Connection flight from Asheville, North
Carolina to New York, a jammed bathroom door caused the co-pilot to
think the airplane was under attack.
The New York Post reports that the incident occurred
shortly before landing. The pilot stepped out of the cockpit for a
bathroom break, but found himself stuck when he could not get the
door open. He reportedly began pounding on the door, which drew the
attention of a passenger seated near the front of the plane. The
passenger, who according to the story had an accent that "sounded
Middle Eastern," tried to get the attention of the co-pilot through
the locked, reinforced cockpit door.
The co-pilot contacted ATC, saying that "The captain disappeared
in the back, and, uh, I have someone with a thick foreign accent
trying to access the cockpit." The captain even tried to convince
his crew mate of the authenticity of his dilemma by
giving the passenger his cockpit-access code ... but the co-pilot
remained unconvinced.
ATC directed the co-pilot to make an emergency landing, but the
captain got himself out of the lav and back into the cockpit in
time to assure ATC that there was no threat to the airplane. The
Post did not say where the flight attendant was on during the
exchange.
ABC news reported that fighter jets were put on alert but not
scrambled, and the FBI and New York Port Authority determined after
the plane landed that it was indeed simply an odd set of
coincidences.
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