Yesterday’s ANA flight 175 from Los Angeles to Tokyo Narita ended up turning around about four hours after takeoff. The plane left Los Angeles at 11:36AM PT, and returned at 7:32PM PT.
The only information we have directly from ANA is this statement, per CNBC:
“During the flight, the cabin crew became aware that one of the passengers boarded the incorrect flight and notified the pilot. As part of the airline’s security procedure, the pilot in command decided to return to the originating airport, where the passenger was disembarked. ANA is researching the situation currently to determine how the passenger boarded the flight. ANA would like to express its apologies to the passengers for the inconvenience.”
However, fortunately supermodel Chrissy Teigen and her husband, John Legend, were on the flight. Chrissy did a damn good job documenting every last detail of this situation over a few dozen Tweets.
https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/945827499761692672
https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/945850879860670464
https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/945856948678877186
https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/945865878435913728
While we don’t officially know that this is what happened, it sounds like the passenger in question was actually booked on the United flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo Narita. ANA and United have a joint venture on transpacific flights, and both airlines operate a flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo Narita departing around the same time.
That doesn’t answer how this person managed to get onto the ANA flight, though. You’d think that the boarding pass scanner would have stopped them. On top of that, ANA verifies boarding passes at the door and also does a seat count before the door closes, so it’s quite remarkable that the passenger not only managed to get onto the plane, but also managed to stay on it. From everything we know, it sounds like this was an honest mistake, and that this passenger didn’t have any motive to be on the ANA flight.
https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/945861413251162115
Upon landing back at LAX they apparently put the plane in a secure area, and conducted interviews.
https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/945864433326178304
https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/945864784813080576
https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/945871409636446208
Eventually everyone was taken off the plane, and Chrissy was put in a room where Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was screening. That’s good, at least.
https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/945879065700941825
https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/945884491389722624
The plane ended up taking off from Los Angeles at around 3AM, and is due into Tokyo at around 7AM local time. And I’m sorry Chrissy, but I’m afraid you’re probably going to get the same menu again.
https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/945954278593650689
Could this really just have been an honest mistake?
The series of events that led to the ANA staff allowing this passenger to fly is quite stunning. The ground staff scanned the boarding pass, the flight attendants verified the boarding pass at the door, the passenger was able to select a seat that wasn’t otherwise occupied, and the flight attendants did a seat count that apparently matched what was expected.
This person had a United ticket, so we have no reason to believe there was any foul play here, or that this passenger was intentionally taking a different flight, etc.
It’s possible that there’s something we don’t know. Maybe this person was also on some sort of a watch list, or something. But I have no reason to believe that’s the case. The reality is that we still live in an age of paranoia and security theater when it comes to aviation. Assuming this person had a ticket for the United flight, and assuming this person went through security, and assuming there wasn’t anything unusual about his/her behavior, it seems ridiculous to turn the plane around. You’re delaying hundreds of people by 16+ hours, not to mention that a diversion like this probably costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But unfortunately this sort of attitude seems to be standard operating procedure. Yet somehow we’re okay with the TSA continuing to miss a vast majority of weapons that go through security checkpoints.
What do you think — was this just a simple mixup and huge overreaction, or was there more to the story?
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