Southwest Airlines pilot hangs from window to retrieve passenger’s cell phone
(NEXSTAR) – Generally speaking, you never want to see the pilot of your plane hanging from the window of the cockpit — unless, of course, he’s helping you retrieve your phone.
That was the exact scenario that played out before a recent Southwest Airlines flight in California, when the carrier’s crew at Long Beach Airport worked together with the captain of a departing plane to return a passenger’s phone via the cockpit window.
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The plane, which had already left the gate in preparation for takeoff, was sitting on the tarmac when a passenger waiting to board a separate flight noticed a phone in the gate area, according to a Southwest spokesperson. This passenger then brought the phone to a Southwest operations agent, telling the agent that the phone’s owner had already boarded the taxiing aircraft.
Rather than throw the phone into the lost-and-found or having it sent to the flight’s destination city, the agents in the airport passed it off to the ground crew, who “jumped it up” to the plane’s captain while the plane sat on the tarmac, according to a Facebook post shared by Southwest earlier this week.
The post also contained video which showed two members of the ground crew taking turns trying to hand the phone to the captain, who was leaning from the cockpit. Passengers near the gate could also be heard cheering once the phone was safely in the pilot’s hand.
“We love seeing the goodwill efforts of our Employees helping out a fellow Passenger,” a spokesperson for Southwest wrote in an emailed statement to Nexstar. “We are grateful to see our Team jumping in to help passengers often.”
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In response to Southwest’s Facebook post, dozens of the carrier’s frequent customers praised the airline for helping the phone-less traveler. One of them, however, had a different message for Southwest after narrowly missing her flight back in July.
“Wish someone would have done that for me and shoved me through the window [of the plane],” she joked on Facebook.
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