WASHINGTON -United Airlines says it is investigating after a vendor employee was found unharmed in an aircraft’s cargo hold following a flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Washington Dulles International Airport.
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The airline said in a statement to The Associated Press on Monday that United Express flight 6060 operated by Mesa Airlines landed safely at Dulles on Sunday.
The statement says once at the gate, an employee of the airline’s ground handling vendor was found in the cargo area.
Media outlets identified the worker as 45-year-old Reginald Gaskin and report that radio transmissions reveal it was initially treated as a security incident.
“We’re going to work it as a security incident until we can get some confirmation to who he is even though he’s in trade dress for a ramper in Charlotte. The flight crew doesn’t remember seeing him or anything like that,” radio traffic controllers were recorded saying.
The Washington Post reported that workers contacted the Federal Aviation Administration when they realized Gaskin might in the hold.
“They accidentally locked him in the cargo area.”
The newspaper reported that Gaskin declined to discuss how he ended up inside the plane, saying only: “I thank God. He was with me.”
United confirmed to WBTV that the employee was unharmed and refused medical attention after the plane landed.
The flight reached a cruising altitude of 27,000 feet and a speed of more than 750 kph.
A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority directed questions to United.
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