Man sleeps through round trip flight
OSLO, Norway (AP) - It's not uncommon for airline passengers to doze off during their flight. But for 21-year-old Tor Martin Johansen, the snooze lasted through an entire round trip.
Johansen fell asleep on a short flight from central Norway city of Trondheim via Roervik to his hometown of Namsos on Thursday. When he woke up, he was back in Trondheim.
"I was really taken aback when I heard the cabin attendant say 'welcome to Trondheim' when I opened my eyes and thought I had arrived in Namsos," he was quoted as saying in Friday's edition of the Oslo newspaper Verdens Gang.
When the commuter plane landed in Namsos, no one noticed the sleeping passenger, or reacted to the extra person on board compared to the passenger count. So the plane returned to Trondheim with Johansen still on board.
"It is completely correct, unfortunately. It has never happened before," Richard Kongsteien, spokesman for the Wideroe airline, said by telephone. "Seen on its own, it's an amusing incident, but it is also a very serious matter."
He said that the plane was on a commuter route with several stops and so was never emptied. However, he said ground personnel violated security regulations by failing to notice a mismatch between the passenger list, with 33 people, and the count of 34 people on board.
"This will not happen again," he vowed. "Our passengers can rest assured that they can sleep soundly on our flights and be woken up at their destination."
The airline gave Johansen a free ticket to his original destination.
