Southwest Airlines pilot climbs into cockpit window after being locked out of flight deck

A Southwest Airlines pilot was forced to crawl through the cockpit window after a passenger accidentally closed and locked the door to the plane's control center on a flight from San Diego to Sacramento earlier this week.

A passenger on the loading bridge snapped a photo of the pilot squeezing himself through the window of the plane during Wednesday's boarding. A ground crew member had managed to jimmy the window open, passenger Matt Rexroad told FOX5SanDiego.com.

It took a "matter of seconds before that window was open," Rexroad said. "It was all done incredibly efficiently." Despite the unexpected glitch, the flight departed only eight minutes late, he added.

After Rexroad posted his photo to Twitter on Thursday, Southwest responded, "Well that is definitely something you don't see every day."

Once inside the cockpit, the pilot was able to unlock the door so that the flight could proceed, a Southwest spokesperson said Saturday.

The snafu happened during boarding, when a passenger exiting a bathroom in the front of the cabin accidentally pushed close the door to the flight deck, which locked as designed, the spokesperson said.

"As you see from the photo, one of our Pilots unlocked the door after entering the Flight Deck through a window," Southwest said in a statement. "The flight departed as scheduled ahead of this busy weekend of summer travel in the U.S."