Photo: Southwest Pilot Locked Out of Cockpit, Crawls in Through Window

A passenger captured a photo of a pilot crawling through the window of a Southwest Airlines plane after being locked out of the cockpit.

Matt Rexroad posted a photo on Twitter showing the pilot standing on an airstair at the side of the plane's windscreen. The pilot's upper body was outstretched inside the plane as he attempted to open the door.

"No joke… yesterday last passenger got off plane with no one else on board, he shut the door. Door locked," Rexroad tweeted on Thursday.

A Southwest representative told Insider that a passenger on a previous flight had opened the lavatory door which then pushed and locked the flight deck's door.

"One of our pilots unlocked the door from a flight deck window, and the flight departed as scheduled," the representative continued.

Rexroad told CBS News that he was a passenger on the Southwest flight headed to Sacramento, California, from San Diego.

"I think it is amazing that Southwest Airlines goes above and beyond to get their flights to be on time. Excellent effort by the flight and the crew," Rexroad told Insider in an email.

Southwest took a jab at the photo, replying to Rexroad's post that it was "definitely something you don't see everyday."

"We love you, Matt!," the airline wrote in another reply, after Rexroad commented that he loved the airline.

A few Twitter users responded in disbelief, with one user named Ryan Clumpner commenting that they "had no clue cockpit windows even opened."

Another user, Rob Stutzman, questioned why the pilot "didn't try a coat hanger first."

It's not the first time a pilot has gotten locked out of the cockpit. In a TikTok posted in July last year, an American Airlines pilot was shown climbing into a plane through the windscreen.

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