Pilot forgets his passport, LA-China flight forced to make an unexpected U-turn; Internet wonders where the checklist is!

In a bizarre incident, a United Airlines flight en route to China from Los Angeles had to make an unexpected U-turn after discovering that one of the pilots boarded the flight without their passport.?

According to a CNN report, due to the blunder made by the pilot, the plane ended up landing in Shanghai about six hours behind the planned schedule. The report also noted that the flight was carrying 257 passengers along with 13 crew members and was headed northwest over the Pacific Ocean.?

United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to China made an unexpected U-turn?

Following the chaos, two hours later, the flight had to turn around and eventually ended up landing in San Francisco, as per a CNN report that cited information from the website called FlightAware.?

Finally, in the evening, the flight again took off for China later in the evening with a new crew member.

Credit: X

Reaction from United Airlines

Later, after the incident happened, United Airlines issued a statement saying that the pilot did not have their passport onboard and they had arranged for a new crew to take their customers to their destination that evening.?

"Customers were provided with meal vouchers and compensation," the statement added.?

It did not stop there; people took to their social media and discussed the bizarre incident.?

Airline making unexpected U-turn sparks conversation online?

Many posted varied remarks on the incident, taking to various social media platforms. Some even slammed the airline for providing just meal vouchers after the long delay.?

In a Reddit thread, a user wrote, "Apparently, the passengers were given 15 dollar meal vouchers as compensation for wasting 7 hours of their time... Awesome."

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innottheonion

Another asked, "What would happen if the plane landed? Surely they would only find out once the plane had landed and the pilot was in the airport? There must be a way to authenticate a pilot other than passports like a back up on some type of system?"

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innottheonion

"United has been on a tear."

One said, "This should be added to their checklists. They have all sorts of check lists - add this to them. "

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