When Kris Lines, a professor of sports law at Staffordshire University, had to take a trans-Atlantic flight from his native UK to Vancouver, he knew he had to stay awake.  After all, he had to make sure he made his connecting flight.  So he drank a lot of Cokes and kept himself awake, made it to the flight, and was soon winging his way to Canada.  On the longer part of the flight, across the ocean, it was safe and he fell asleep.  Little did he know he’d sleep through landing, disembarking, and the plane’s shutting-down procedures.  He woke up 90 minutes after landing in the airplane hangar!

“I was just dead to the world. I didn’t think I would need to set an alarm clock to wake me up at the end of the journey,” said Professor Lines.  “I got woken up by a guy in a fluorescent tabard – he was as surprised as I was.  I was on an empty plane, being nudged on the shoulder and I thought everybody had just got off two or three minutes ago.  I frantically grabbed my stuff and he just said: ‘Don’t worry, take your time, everybody else got off an hour and a half ago.’”

Apparently, during the process of getting everyone off the plane, staff had to assist someone in a wheelchair.  That, thanks to fatigue, allowed Lines to sleep through the process of getting off the plane, parking the plane, and through most of the inspection process.  That’s a glowing endorsement of airport security, isn’t it?  Someone (besides the professor) was asleep on the job, I think!

Image: Ben Rasmusen

Tags: man sleeps through plane flight, man wakes up in airplane hangar after flight, Kris Lines, Staffordshire University, Air Canada, unusual accidents, airport security

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