Pilot’s forgotten passport prompts mid-air U-turn on flight from L.A. to China

A United Airlines flight out of Los Angeles International Airport had to turn around two hours into its nearly 14-hour trek to China after one of the pilots realized he’d failed to pack his passport, according to multiple media reports.  

The March 22 flight, UA 198, departed LAX at 2 p.m. with more than 250 passengers onboard and 13 crew members. It was headed to Shanghai, China’s largest city.  

Some two hours into the Boeing 787 jetliner’s northwest path over the Pacific Ocean, Yang Shuhan, a Chinese passenger who had been in the U.S. on business, told CNN she heard a pilot’s “very frustrated voice” announcing his forgotten passport over the PA system.  

The flight tracking website FlightAware shows the aircraft’s abrupt diversion to San Francisco, where it landed at around 5 p.m. 

In a statement to CNN, United Airlines acknowledged that the pilot did not have his passport and said that in San Francisco, a new crew boarded the aircraft to take customers, who received meal vouchers and compensation, to their destination.  

The flight eventually took off again at around 9 p.m. and arrived in Shanghai approximately six hours behind schedule, according to reporting by the Daily Beast.  

The forgotten passport not only delayed those bound for Shanghai but also put the return flight back to Los Angeles six hours behind.  

“I’m feeling pretty frustrated,” a business traveler who requested anonymity told CNN. “I have to reschedule all my plans for Monday, which is really inconvenient.”  

The largest airline in the world, according to its website, United fly 140 million passengers to more than 300 destinations across six continents each year.