It must have seemed like the flight that would never end for passengers aboard a September 7 American Airlines flight leaving Dallas and bound for South Korea.
After five hours in the air, the plane made a U-turn and headed back to Dallas, where it landed after nine hours in the air. Everyone ended up right back where they started from, and none of the passengers aboard know why.
One woman, 41-year-old Jimin Lee took out her phone to document the trip to nowhere. She took several videos during the flight and posted them to Instagram, making sure to tag American Airlines in her post. Irritated at the lack of explanation for the weird move from the flight crew—Lee claims they told passengers to “just relax”—Lee said “your flight to Korea may go five hours and come back with zero explanation.”
Lee added that American Airlines needed some remedial training in clear and effective communication to passengers. They could all see the screen on their tv monitors at their seats showing the plane had turned around and headed back to the U.S., yet none of the crew could say exactly why. The plane position tracking screen showed the airliner flying out of the U.S. and out over the Pacific Ocean before turning around and backtracking.
During her video, Lee added updates about the weird flight. At one point the crew apparently said the plane had to turn around because some of the bathrooms were not working. Anyone who has flown repeatedly has probably had the experience of being told a departure was delayed because of a bathroom issue, but airlines are never clear about exactly why all the bathrooms have to work in order for the flight to get underway.
According to Lee, at one point the captain got on the intercom and asked if anyone was carrying a Phillips-head screwdriver that could be used to fix whatever the problem was with the bathroom.
Lee made the best of an absurd situation by enjoying what she called “the only vice available to me,” a packet of Flaming Hot Cheetos.
Though the incident happened weeks ago, there is still no word from American about why. No further details are available about what the company did to get passengers to their destination in Korea.
