Commercial pilots flying out of Omaha, Nebraska, got quite a scare Monday evening when they heard banging on the door of the cockpit and thought someone might be trying to break in. American Airlines Flight 6569 bound for Los Angeles, operated by regional carrier SkyWest, turned around and made an emergency landing before 8pm, just 36 minutes after takeoff from Eppley Airfield, according to flight tracking data. The Federal Aviation Administration said the pilots declared an emergency when they "could not contact the cabin crew," per NBC News.
It turned out there was an issue with the plane's inter-phone system. Unable to reach the pilots by radio, the crew resorted to knocking on the locked cockpit door. Hearing only silence from the communication system, the pilots feared opening the cockpit door could end in disaster, per KABC.
Cockpit doors on commercial airliners have been reinforced and are kept locked during flights in accordance with FAA regulations implemented after 9/11. Most planes are also equipped with a keypad system allowing authorized crew to request entry, though it remains unclear whether this was used during the incident. A video shot when the plane was back on the ground recorded a pilot telling confused passengers, "We weren't sure if something was going on with the airplane, so that's why we're coming back here. It's gonna be a little bit. We have to figure out what's going on."
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