beckoa

The BBC has a write up on this:

​​​​​​​http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42492467

TennisNoob

Yeah it doesn't click to me and also based on how "perfect" NH does things, I don't believe they missed a head count and would turn around 4 hours in.

jiaogulan

Surprised this story doesn't get more posts here. If Ed Bastian misses a semi colon, people torch him. ;-)

Look forward to hearing any explanation. We know it won't come from ANA!

CPH-Flyer

They missed it on a domestic flight as well, there they had more passengers than seats after the doors were closed and push back had started. Though they caught it before take off. And they had another case if I remember correctly, then the Japanese regulatory authority tightened the rules, no push back before head count is complete and tallied.

yogi

flight track:

https://de.flightaware.com/live/flig...845Z/KLAX/KLAX

BruceLynn

Does anyone have any insights as to why the Nippon Airways Flight 175 tweeted by Chrissy Tiegen (I'm not allowed to post a URL since I have just joined, but if you google it, you will find all the stories) would have happened the way it did returningin to LAX 4 hours into the flight?

I don't really understand why it would be a "Security risk". If the individual in question had been on the plane for 4 hours, then certainly the airline was already pretty exposed. Would a 4 hour return to LAX have been safer than continuing to Tokyo for 7 hours?

Surely, they could have (and should have) investigated that "unauthorised passenger" immediately upon their discovery. If it was truly a computer glitch that processed them onto the plane, then that would eliminated the likelihood that it was a security risk (no terrorist could have plotted an attack basing their plan on a computer glitch happening).

The airline and passenger cost of the turnaround was astronomical. Do you think there was any compensation for the passengers (for missed flights, lost hotel rooms, etc)?

Does anyone have any insights to the airline protocol in these situations who can explain this bizarre turnaround and what likely happened in the aftermath?

Thanks.

mdkowals

Welcome to Flyertalk!

They're talking about it on the ANA 175 incident on the Nippon Airways thread here
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/all-...ght-175-a.html

Apparently a stowaway on the plane?

BruceLynn

Docbert's explanation is excellent for how the problem happened (if it was this honest mistake, one would hope that ANA/UA might change a few things to reduce the likelyhood of happening again), but doesn't really explain why they had to turn around (as DesertNomad notes)

Wyeson has the best explanation for why the plane had to turn around, but is his scenario realistic? Isn't the passenger "outside" the country until they go through passport control? So if it wasn't an authorised entry, wouldn't he just sit outside passport control and then be put on the next flight back to USA?

NeedstoFly

VTrain

Some more info in article below. Two brothers, one had a boarding pass for the ANA flight, one for the United. Instead, both got on the ANA flight. FBI interviewed them on return, but there was no reason to believe there was any danger.

Based on this, hard for me to believe this was an innocent mistake, seems like they tried to get on the same flight to see if they could get away with it and fly together.

LAX flight flop: Details emerge on how wrong passenger was allowed on plane | abc7.com

BruceLynn

VTrain - Great added info which makes a lot of sense explaining how the error happened (combination of the ANA/UA proximity just waiting for this sort of mix up abetted by the passengers deliberately manipulating the situation. But it doesn't explain the turnaround. As you say, what could the danger be? Was security risk the motivation for turning the flight around?

HawaiiTrvlr

Thats because John Legend and Chrissy Tiegan (the model who tweeted out the incident) are married. They were going to Japan together.

ozflygirl747

It's possible that the brother who was legitimately booked on the NH175 flight reprinted his boarding pass and gave a duplicate copy to his brother (who was booked on the United flight) and allowed him to board first. Not sure whether they do a passport check at the gate prior to boarding but even if they did as both pax would have the same surname the staff member doing the checks may not have picked up that the first name on the boarding pass was different to that on the passport.

When the real pax got to the gate if there was a rejection beep saying "already boarded" and staff did an ID check everything would seem legit as the passport and boarding pass would match the passenger standing in front of them. Sometimes gate readers will correctly scan a boarding pass and board a pax without beeping so I can understand how staff may not think anything was amiss.

Wonder if authorities confirmed with UA if the ring-in pax was a no show on their flight LAX/NRT flight and subsequently offloaded from that flight.

Both pax must've known the NH flight wasn't full which they could've found out by either asking the NH CSA at checkin or some other way like checking the seat map for the flight on Expert Flyer.

People can be quite naive when it comes to codeshares and think that because it's a NH/UA codeshare that it won't matter which flight they fly on because in their eyes it's the same thing.

LandMiler

The problem is the operation at the boarding gate. I can't understand how he managed to clear the gate without a valid boarding pass.

docbert

Possibly, or perhaps they just didn't realize they were on different flights (Both booked the "NH" flight leaving at 10:45, without realizing one was a codeshare), then checked in online. However that doesn't explain how they both managed to get on the plane unless the gate agent really screwed up...

Something like what you've described may well explain the return to LAX as well - if there was any chance that it wasn't a casual mistake by the passenger then it makes sense that the response could have been a little more heavy-handed.