Oy vay, a little cash should help with his sleep disorder!
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Man thought he was dead, sues airline
10/04/01
CHANDA TEMPLE
News staff writer
A Philadelphia man has sued U.S. Airways for negligence, claiming he thought the plane he was on had crashed and he was dead after the crew left him asleep on the aircraft.
Scott Bender says in the suit, filed last month in the Jefferson County circuit clerk's office, that he was asleep when the small plane from North Carolina landed at the Birmingham International Airport at 10:30 p.m. Feb. 19.
Bender claims the crew failed to wake him up and did not adequately check the cabin before closing the hatch, turning off the cabin lights, locking the door and disembarking the 50-seat plane, the suit said.
When Bender awoke, there was little light to guide him and no one on the plane. The 14 passengers on the plane were gone.
"He literally woke up and didn't know if he was alive or dead," said Bender's Birmingham lawyer, Richard Frankowski. "That was his immediate fear."
"Obviously he's a heavy sleeper. You would think landing would wake him up but it didn't," Frankowski said. "He had been traveling for a good portion of the day and he was just worn out."
Bender opened an airplane door and walked down a set of stairs to the ground. However, airport security detained him for nearly an hour for questioning, Frankowski said.
Frankowski said Bender, a jewelry salesman, couldn't get his baggage until the next day. The suit said Bender suffered mental and emotional anguish, lost wages and out-of-pocket expenses after the incident.
David Castelveter, a U.S. Airways company spokesman based in Virginia, said he could not comment on the lawsuit. Castelveter said the 64-year-old company has laid off 11,000 of its 46,579 employees since last month's terrorist attacks.
http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnew...9241028024.xml