by Donald Wood
Last updated: 5:15 PM ET, Mon October 3, 2016
On Saturday, a flight was forced to make an emergency landing in Lisbon, Portugal, after an airport employee was discovered trapped inside the cargo hold.
According to The Associated Press, a TAAG Angola Airlines plane was departing from Porto, Portugal, en route to Luanda, Angola, at around 10 a.m. local time when an employee who loaded the cargo hold was reported missing.
Officials informed that captain of the flight that the belief was the worker had been trapped inside the cargo hold and the flight crew called for an immediate emergency landing at the closest airport.
The plane landed safely at Lisbon Portela Airport at around 11 a.m. local time. Emergency crews rushed to the scene and found the man alive, but suffering from hypothermia. While Lisbon airport spokesman Rui Oliveira would not provide further details about the incident, the employee was in stable condition and recovering at a local hospital.
As odd as this incident was, it is not unique. In 2015, an airport employee loading bags onto a plane at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport fell asleep in a cargo hold and was trapped when the plane took off for Los Angeles.
Earlier this year, a 16-year-old Chinese male was also caught on a flight to Dubai after sneaking into a cargo hold on an Emirates plane in order to make a living begging in the United Arab Emirates.
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