A passenger on a delayed Delta flight got himself stuck in the plane’s lavatory shortly after takeoff. He managed to get “locked in there somehow” and couldn’t figure out how to get out. The lock was sticking, several flight attendants couldn’t free him, and finally “one of the pilots..got the job done with a butter knife.”
Elderly man gets himself locked in bathroom: Butter Knife for the Win!
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Passengers aren’t always so lucky. Crew once failed to rescue a passenger stuck in a lav, and told him to sit on the toilet for landing. They passed him a note that sealed his fate: “Sir, we tried.”
There’s something about Delta pilots rescuing passengers stuck in lavatories though (or something about Delta lavatories that keep getting passengers stuck).
Here a customer got stuck in the lavatory for 35 minutes on a flight from Salt Lake City to New Orleans, as flight attendants and a pilot struggle mightily to free him. The husband was kicking from the inside, the pilot pulling from the outside, when they finally managed to get it open.
United once had to divert to Denver to rescue a passenger stuck in the lavatory, and American had to cancel a flight because a passenger went to the bathroom before the flight and got stuck inside. Meanwhile, an American flight attendant locked a woman and her toddler in a lavatory during a flight, claiming they were terrorists (they weren’t). The best advice, I guess, is to go to the bathroom prior to boarding.
Poor Tim Dunn. His first experience with Delta does not seem to have been much fun. Then again, the lavatory might be more pleasant than his mother’s basement.
It’s literally child’s play to unlock some locked doors with a butter knife.
Speaking of locks, don’t assume a door lock in a plane or even a hotel is ordinarily meant to keep out the employees. Even the deadbolt locks at hotels are easily unlocked by hotel employees and fire inspectors. This is why some people carry door floor wedge stoppers — although they don’t work with doors in all places — and/or their own travel door locks to jam the door shut around where the deadbolt is on inward opening doors.
About plane lavatories, note that their walls often aren’t very sturdy. And the doors really aren’t either.
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