People who operate the 911 hotline are trained to handle all kinds of emergencies. From domestic incidents, such as house intrusions and fire, to full-blown disasters and natural calamities, such as earthquakes and flooding, the men and women manning the phones are always ready to respond to any situation.
When an unidentified man, however, called the hotline on Monday afternoon claiming to be stuck in a plane, one would have to wonder if the 911 responder thought this was going to be one of those weird ones.
Here is how the emergency call went down:
"Hello, I'm stuck in this plane," the unidentified man said.
"You're where?" the 911 operator asked, seemingly confused.
The man explained that he believed he was inside a plane and that it was "moving in the air." It was at that point when he started to panic.
"Can you please tell somebody to stop it?" the man begged.
The operator, still not completely understanding what was going on, asked the man on the other end of the line what plane he was in and if he was still in the airport.
The connection then started to fail, with the frantic man only managing to get the words "By myself" and "Please!" out before the line was cut.
The operator tried to call the man back but the service seemed to be out of reach.
The flight in question was Alaska Airlines Flight 448, which took off from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. It was on its way to Los Angeles when the emergency call was made.
As for the unidentified man, he was safely rescued when the pilots of the plane heard loud banging from cargo hold and decided to turn the plane back.
The man, who was finally identified as an employee of Menzies Aviation, did not suffer any injuries during his stay in the cargo hold. Still, he was taken to the hospital as a health precaution and was eventually discharged after passing a drug test.
Officials of the airline said that the man was stuck in a pressurized and temperature-controlled cargo hold, and that the plane was also in the air for only 14 minutes.
According to passengers of the flight, they heard some loud pounding noises from underneath the plane. They initially thought there might have been a problem with the landing of the plane.
The aviation employee recounted the events leading up to his detention in the cargo hold. He said that he began his work 5 a.m. on Monday and was supposed to end his shift at 2:30 p.m. He said that he had fallen asleep in the cargo hold just before the plane was scheduled to take off from the airport. When the other members of his team did not see him later on, they simply thought he had already gone home after finishing his shift.
No investigation about the incident was launched, according to an official of the Seattle Port Authority, because there were no security breaches or criminal violations.
Alaska Airlines, however, announced that the Menzies Aviation worker is prohibited to work on any of their flights from here on.
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Photo: Sean Hagen | Flickr
