Man falls asleep on plane, wakes up locked inside

Tom Wagner did what most of us try to do on long flights: sleep.

He didn't expect, however, to wake up to an empty plane.

Wagner caught some shut-eye on a United Express flight from Lafayette, Louisiana, to Houston, Texas.

"I was coming from Louisiana to see my sister in California. We had a layover in Texas," Wagner told CNN news channel KTRK. "I just took my hat off and I took a nap."

When the plane landed, cabin crew failed to notice a sleeping man in a window seat in the back row — and left him on the plane alone.

When Wagner eventually opened his eyes, he discovered that he was the only person on the dark, cold, empty plane. He was locked inside.

In a panic, he called his girlfriend who, in turn, called the airline. About half an hour later, crew members came to let him off the plane.

"What if I had a medical condition or something? What if I had a heart attack and I was dead? You just shut the plane and leave someone on there?" he said.

"That's not good that you could just be stuck on a plane," he told KVEO.

The airline, which is investigating the "alarming" incident, apologized to Wagner with a $250 voucher.

ExpressJet issued a statement to Eyewitness News:

"Express Jet is investigating to determine how this occurred, we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this caused the passenger."