dailynewsnblog
Yesterday, 
American Airlines travelers boarding a jet departing 
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) were delayed for over an hour and a half by an unusual technical malfunction. Just as customers started walking down the jet bridge, they were turned back by the pilots who informed them that the cockpit door had jammed shut.
In a humorous but inconvenient maintenance challenge, technicians had to gain access to the flight deck through one of the plane’s front windows. Once inside, they discovered that it had not been accidentally locked or broken but had simply gotten stuck.
American Airlines Flight 2140 Gets Stuck
The unlucky flight was bound for Monterey Regional Airport (MRY) on Sunday when it was stopped in its tracks by the jammed door. A View From The Wing wrote that when the ground crew was finally able to climb inside and get the door open, one pilot joked that they “lubed it up real good.” Well, we may not know the mechanical details of exactly what the issue was, but passengers were at least fortunate to not be forced to wait on a substitute aircraft or rebook on alternative flights.
AA Flight 2140 was scheduled to depart at 10:15 AM, but the Boeing 737 MAX 8 did not actually take off until 12:21 PM, according to Flightradar24. The American staff told the passengers that the keys to the cockpit door were never misplaced or trapped in the flight deck. The delay stemmed primarily from the time it took to properly re-lubricate the door latch and ensure that it would not jam up again.
Chron recounted this statement from one flyer that was in the early boarding group:
“Halfway down the bridge for pre-board when the pilot comes out and says to turn around and go back to the gate – that they got locked out of the cockpit.”
How Aviators Get Jammed Up By Cockpit Doors.
The cockpit door is equipped with a self-locking mechanism as a function of the highly secure protocols in the post 9/11 era of commercial aviation. Since they are designed to very effectively keep people out of the flight deck, when accidents happen as they did on Sunday, the only option is to break out the air stairs and start climbing. Once inside, they can either release the internal one-way latch or pry the door open if it happens to be stuck, as it was on AA Flight 2140.
Three years ago, a 
Southwest Airlines 737 experienced a similar problem with the flight deck door after a passenger tried to use the lavatory during boarding. A View From The Wing wrote that in that situation, the traveler pushed the door closed while no one was inside the cockpit as they were trying to enter the forward lavatory. In that case, there was no mechanical issue, and after the pilot climbed into the cockpit window thanks to some help from maintainers and a set of air stairs, the departure was only eight minutes late.
Sometimes the circumstances unfold to be particularly unlucky, as is the case for some 
Delta Air Lines pilots in 2022. The air crew on that day were locked out and had to climb into the cockpit from the sliding window, but apparently, no stairs were available. In this case, the captain and first officer were only able to use a baggage loader to climb up to the window. The awkward angle platform with its four-foot hold made an already uncomfortable process even more challenging, as seen in videos posted on social media by flyers that day.
$100K Mistake: Delta Flight Attendant Accidentally Deploys Airbus A220 Emergency Slide
The incident occurred on the morning of October 26, 2025.
The Secret Door On The Boeing 737
The Boeing 737 is built with an external window latch release that is meant to serve as an emergency access function in the case that the pilots are incapacitated. Since it is the only external means, it also functions as the backup cockpit access when the door is jammed or accidentally locked from the outside.
The release lever is located in a small flush panel just below the window itself, on the nose of the plane, as Peter The Irish Pilot showed in a YouTube video. Pulling the lever mechanically unlocks the window panel from its pressure seal, allowing it to drop down and slide back. After the cockpit has been reopened, a technician can easily slide the window back up through its track and lock it back into place before departure.
