THE CAPTAIN DISAPPEARED AND SOMEONE WITH A 'THICK FOREIGN ACCENT' IS TRYING TO GET IN THE COCKPIT

You couldn’t make up a story like this, even if you were a Hollywood screenwriter.

PILOT CAUSES MID-AIR TERROR SCARE BY LOCKING HIMSELF IN TOILET AND THEN SENDING PASSENGER ‘WITH MIDDLE EASTERN ACCENT’ TO COCKPIT FOR HELP
By Laurie Whitwell

Mail Online
November 17, 2011

A pilot inadvertently caused a mid-air terror scare when he accidentally locked himself in the toilet and sent a passenger 'with a Middle Eastern accent' to the cockpit for help.

With the flight not far from landing, a spooked co-pilot refused to let the Good Samaritan in, and instead told the control tower at LaGuardia Airport of his serious concerns that an attack was underway.

The passenger continued to bang on the door for assistance and even offered the password but the co-pilot refused to budge, leading to fighter planes being alerted.

The apparent danger was only averted when the pilot managed to force his way out of the men's lavatory and resume his place behind the controls.

In a cockpit radio recording, obtained by the New York Post, he can be heard telling air traffic control: 'The captain, myself, went back to the lavatory and the door latch broke and I had to fight my way out of it with my body to get the door open.

'There is no issue, no threat.'

The drama took place on a New York-bound Chatauqua Airlines flight from Asheville, North Carolina, and began when the pilot decided to take a bathroom break before landing.

But when he tried to leave the latch broke and he was locked inside at a crucial moment in the flight's journey. The plane was holding pattern above the airport and ready to touch down.

A well-meaning passenger sitting in the front row heard his hammering and rushed to assist, the New York Post reported.

Relieved, the pilot told the passenger to go to the cockpit and tell the crew of his situation, the paper said.

But the co-pilot, already jittery about why his colleague's bathroom break was taking so long, was in no mood to allow a stranger into the highly-secured area, least still one with a Middle Eastern accent, the New York Post reported.

Almost stammering, he swiftly contacted air traffic control.

'We are 180 knots 10,000 [feet] uh, can we leave the frequency for a minute? We are going to try to, uh contact dispatch,' he said in the recording obtained by the New York Post.

'The captain disappeared in the back, and, uh, I have someone with a thick foreign accent trying to access the cockpit.'

The passenger explained through the door what had happened but the co-pilot was still suspicious.

'What I'm being told is he's stuck in the lav, and, uh, someone with a thick foreign accent is giving me a password to access the cockpit,' he said.

'I'm not about to let him in.'

The controller, also scared, advised the pilot to declare an emergency and 'just get on the ground.'

The captain finally managed to bash his way out of the bathroom and told his colleagues everything was fine. At that point fighter planes had already been alerted, although they were never scrambled.

When an air traffic controller called back to check if 'there any level of disturbance on the airplane,' the pilot responded 'negative.'

The FBI and Port Authority officers met the plane when it landed around 6.30pm, the New York Post reported.

A spokesman for Chatauqua said police talked to the passenger and quickly established there had been a big misunderstanding, the New York Post reported.