Help! Lost CDN Passport while in the US
 

I am currently in San Diego and somehow managed to lose my passport while travelling down here. I know that I had it to get on a flight in YYZ, but did not have it at Ohare. I went to the red Carpet Club where I asked them to go search the plane, which they did but couldnt find it. I continued on to San Diego but I am now without a passport and scheduled to return to Canada SAN->SFO->YYZ-YSJ on Friday's redeye.

I have phoned both the LA and SFO Canadian Consulate offices and have gotten no response from either. Any idea if I will be able to fly back to Canada without a passport? Should I fly close to the border and attempt to drive across?

Any suggestions would be hugely appreciated.

For Canadians returning home: "Proper identification includes a Canadian birth certificate, a Canadian passport, a permanent residence card, a citizenship card or a certificate of Indian status."

For Lost passport: "......However, before the document can be replaced, Canadian authorities will conduct an investigation into the circumstances. This may lead to delays in processing the replacement passport."

Have you called the airline? Chances are, the passport will be found by someone honest and returned to a Canadian government office. That said, if it has not yet been found, you shouldn't wait to report it missing.

http://www.voyage.gc.ca/faq/passport...rts-eng.asp#10

If LA police won't give you a report (as it appears to have been lost between YYZ and ORD), call the Consulate General at 213-346-2700 and seek their advice.

http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca..._id=253&menu=L

It might not be a bad idea to call them first thing, anyway, and see if they have any specific advice.

Try the airport if the airline doesn't have it.

Even if you dropped it on the plane and someone picks it up, they will pass to airline FA. FA will hand over to ramp person who will pass it to airport. The airline will have no record of anything being found!

So check with Lost and Found at airport.

You must therefore then call Canadian Consulate or Embassy in Washington. I hope you can remember the basics : number, date it was issued, and where you issued it.

No matter how honest, I doubt that person will travel all the way to a nearest Canadian government office especially when they're in the USA! They'll probably just either give it to a Police officer or just dropped it in the mail box - which will then end up at the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC.

What would you do if you found a US passport in Toronto? Go to the nearest US embassy? No, you'll just had it over to the nearest police constable, right?

Also worth noting that Monday is President's Day in the States... not sure if everything will be shut down or not.

This doesn't help the OP, but make sure your PHONE NUMBER is in your passport. I stapled my business card to page 4 which requests your contact information, but not your phone number!

OP, the same thing happened to me on a flight from YYZ-ORD. I had pulled out my passport for ID to board the aircraft, then somehow managed to leave it on my seat as I was getting settled in (and subsequently when I left the aircraft). AC called me on my cell phone that evening (hadn't even realized the passport was missing) and I picked it up at the airport before I returned home the next day.

Evidently losing a passport on a plane is a pretty common thing... I found a pair of Cdn passports when flying into BTV, on a Embraer CRJ. They were way way way in the back of an overhead bin, and being 6'4", I had the right angle to see them. I handed them over to the FA, as I figured that was the best thing to do.

HTSC

Returned directly or via a third party like the police or an airport lost and found, I'm pretty sure that many of these passports make their way back the government within a few days.

I have a friend who left his in a taxi somewhere in Asia... fifteen minutes after he arrived at the Embassy to have it reissued, the cab driver dropped it off. Unfortunately, his passport had already been cancelled in the system/reported as lost, so he had to wait for a new one.

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the suggestions. I have left voicemails and emails for both Consulate offices in California with no response, odd.

My flight from SFO-YYZ is AC, should I expect them to allow me to wly without my passport? I do have a copy of my passport as well as a copy of my birth certificate and my drivers license.

Thanks again for any help, starting to get a little nervous.

FYI I've been on an unexpected LAS-YVR flight on Alaska Airlines last year. No passport, just driver's licence and citizenship card. The airline and CBSA had no problems.

Good luck man.

Do you have anyone who can FedEx you your birth certificate? If so, you can fly home with your birth cert and driver's license. Note that you may have difficulty checking in with these, so you may want to head to a business centre and print out the relevant pages from the government of Canada web site indicating that you can enter Canada with these two docs.

Very worst case scenario is fly to SEA, rent a BC-plated one-way car to YVR and plead your case at the border. Once you're in Canada you can fly home.

I doubt the airline will allow you to board with only copies of those documents. They'll probably want documentation from the Canadian government. You should be able to get an Emergency Passport or similar document from a Consulate.

If the airline does allow you to board with the documents you already have, don't worry too much about CBSA. Once you arrive in Canada, you may face a delay due to further examination to confirm your citizenship, but you will be allowed in, of course.

You were mentioning Canadian government offices in SFO and LAX. There is also an office in San Diego:

The Consulate of Canada’s offices are located at:
402 West Broadway, Suite 400
San Diego, California 92101
Telephone: (619) 615-4286
Fax: (619) 615-4287
Email: [email protected]
Hours of Operation

Our offices are open Monday through Friday, from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm