text: The baggage handler who woke up from a nap inside the cargo hold of a flying plane did not realize until a piece of luggage fell on top of him. Alaska Airlines Flight 448 bound for Los Angeles was forced to return to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Monday when passengers heard banging and pleas for help coming from beneath the aircraft. Today, the unnamed Seattle Airport employee revealed he might have slept much longer if it hadn't been for the passengers' bags. He told ABC News: 'When the bags started moving and I heard the sound of the engine, I had to think fast about what to do for me to get out.' Scroll down for audio and video . Can you hear me now? This is the moment an Alaska Airlines baggage handler was pulled from the cargo hold after falling asleep. Earlier, the terrified man called 911 begging the dispatcher for help . Safe: This is the baggage handler who fell asleep aboard the Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Los Angeles on Monday . In a desperate bid for help, he called 911 and spoke to a bemused operator for 44 seconds before he was cut off. 'It was nothing but pitch black and a loud noise,' the man told ABC. 'So I was scared, and I didn't know what was going on.' The employee of airline contractor Menzies Aviation had dozed off inside the plane at the end of his shift and woke 14 minutes into the flight. On Thursday, the trapped baggage handler's desperate 911 call was released, revealing the man's panic and terror. 'Hello, I'm trapped in this plane!' he tells he operator. The woman ostensibly struggles to grasp what's happening and asks for an explanation. 'You're where?' the dispatcher asks. 'I'm inside a plane and I feel like it's moving in the air,' he replies. The airport worker then rattles off the number of the flight and begs the dispatcher to call for help. 'Can you please, can somebody stop it?' he pleads. The man grows increasingly exasperated on the call, telling the woman on the other end of the line that he is not at the airport, but rather inside a flying plane. As he struggles to lay out his situation, the phone begins to cut out and eventually the call gets disconnected . The operator made an attempt to call the man back, but his phone was no longer in service. A passenger on board Flight 448 recorded video of the baggage handlder's knocking that passengers could hear inside the cabin . Emergency landing: The pilot turned back to Seattle 14 minutes into the flight when he heard screaming . Luckily for the drowsy airport staffer, he had better luck with passengers aboard Flight 448 who heard his banging and screams and alerted the crew. 'Help! Help! Help!' the man screamed, according to one traveler. The airline said in a news release the captain immediately returned to Seattle-Tacoma International and declared an emergency for priority landing. The cargo hold where the handler was trapped is temperature controlled and pressurized, so he was not in danger of freezing or running out of oxygen. 'At some point the marshal kind of made himself known and started banging back and he yelled really loud and said, 'We're getting ready to land, hold on to something,'' Troi Ge, a passenger on board the flight, told NBC News. Mr Ge, a sound designer from Burbank, recorded video aboard the plane in which passengers could hear the banging from the cargo hold. After the plane landed, a ramp agent was found inside the front cargo hold. Video taken by KIRO 7 showed the worker calmly walking out of the cargo hold and putting on a high visibility jacket. He stood talking to airport staff for a few seconds before walking off towards the terminal. 'Upon exiting, he told authorities he had fallen asleep,' the airline said. The worker, an employee of Menzies Aviation, walked off the plane and appeared well, but was taken to a hospital as a precaution. He was released home after passing a drug test. The worker, who was part of a four-person crew, started his shift at 5am Monday morning and was scheduled to finish work at 2.30pm, according to the airline. After the team was done loading all the luggage onto the plane, the leader of the crew noticed that one of his staffers was nowhere to be found. He tried calling and texting him but the man did not respond, leading his supervisor to believe that he had gone home at the end of the shift, reported KOMO News. The airline says it is investigating the situation. The pilot could hear banging and screaming from beneath the aircraft as they flew from Seattle to LA . The man appeared to be well as he walked around the runway talking to airport employees . Alaska Airlines is investigating how the man managed to fall asleep before the LA-bound flight took off . Passenger Marty Collins told KOMO-TV in Seattle the flight was surrounded by emergency vehicles when it returned to the airport. She said passengers did not hear the worker banging or making noise. 'Nobody on the plane heard anything like that, nobody knew why we were turning around,' she told the station. 'They just said we were fine and we weren't in any danger. Passenger Troi Ge told the station Q13Fox that at one point a federal air marshal revealed himself and started banging back. He then yelled to the man in the cargo hold that the plane was about to land and urged him to hold onto something to prevent injury. The flight departed again at 3.52pm and was expected to arrive in Los Angeles at 6.27pm, about 80 minutes late, according to the airline's website.
target: Flight 448 had just taken off Monday when the pilot heard banging from beneath .
  LA-bound plane was forced to return to Seattle for emergency landing .
  Worker dialed 911 asking dispatcher to call someone and stop the plane .
  He later emerged calm but was taken to hospital as a precaution .
  Cargo hold was pressurized and temperature controlled, so the man was not in danger .