A UNITED Airlines Boeing 787 jetliner flying from Los Angeles to Shanghai had to turn around last weekend after it was discovered one of the pilots had taken off without a passport.

Flight UA 198 departed LAX at around 2 p.m. March 22, with 257 passengers and 13 crew onboard and headed northwest over the Pacific Ocean, bound for China’s largest city.

About two hours later, the plane turned around and was redirected to San Francisco, where it landed around 5 p.m. local time, according to the website FlightAware.

“The pilot did not have their passport onboard,” United said in the statement. “We arranged for a new crew to take our customers to their destination that evening. Customers were provided with meal vouchers and compensation.”

The flight with the new crew took off around 9 p.m. and landed in Shanghai about six hours behind schedule.

Yang Shuhan, a Chinese passenger on board, said that she heard the pilot’s “very frustrated voice” over the intercom, saying he “forgot his passport.”

After landing in San Francisco, Yang received two meal vouchers totaling US$30, which she used for a meal at the airport. She said she also filed a compensation claim on United’s website, where she was informed to expect a response within 14 business days.

Many passengers said they were “outraged” and “speechless” on Xiaohongshu (RedNote), China’s Instagram-like platform.

“How could someone mess up this badly at work?” read a popular RedNote post from another passenger on board. The post has gotten more than 10,000 likes.

The disruptions didn’t stop with UA 198; passengers on the returning flight, UA 199 from Shanghai to Los Angeles, were also affected due to the late arrival of the inbound aircraft.

United is one of the world’s largest carriers, flying 140 million people to more than 300 destinations across six continents each year, according to the company’s website.

Just last week, an Orthodox Jewish passenger filed a lawsuit against the airline, alleging a United pilot forcibly removed him from a lavatory while he was experiencing constipation, exposing his genitalia to others during a flight from Tulum, Mexico, to Houston.

(SD-Agencies)