Man Locked on Commercial Airplane at the Gate

A man who dozed off during a connecting flight Friday was not dreaming when he woke to find himself alone and locked in a darkened cabin.
Tom Wagner, a Louisiana boat captain, nodded off on a flight from Lafayette, La., to Los Angeles on United Airlines with a stop in Houston when he got a different kind of layover.
“I woke up, and I looked up at the ceiling, and I saw the lights were out,’’ Wagner said on TODAY Monday. “Looked down the aisle, ain’t nobody was home.”
Wagner tried to open the door to exit the plane, but it was locked. He quickly called his girlfriend, who thought he was joking.
“She started laughing,’’ he said. “I said, 'You gotta call United and get me off this plane.'’’
His girlfriend quickly called the airline.
“She says, 'My boyfriend's on that airplane, you gotta get someone to get him off,’’’ he said. “And he said, 'Ma'am, we sweep those planes. There's no way he's on that plane.'’’
After a half hour, maintenance workers opened the door and were stunned to find him inside.