Unauthorized passengers cause stir

Model tweets updates after Tokyo-bound plane is forced to return to L.A.

LOS ANGELES— A Tokyo-bound flight from Los Angeles that turned back to widespread attention on social media was carrying not one but two passengers unauthorized to be on board, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said Wednesday.

One of the passengers had a boarding pass for a United Airlines flight and the other for a separate All Nippon Airlines flight, said Mike England, a TSA spokesperson.

Both were aboard Tokyo-bound All Nippon Airlines Flight 175 when it departed Los Angeles International Airport about 11:30 a.m. Tuesday. About four hours after it departed, it turned around and headed back to Los Angeles.

Model Chrissy Teigen, who was on the rerouted flight, kept her Twitter followers entranced for hours after she recounted the incident in a series of tweets starting before 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.

She and her husband, musician John Legend, planned to go to Tokyo for New Year’s, and they were headed that way from Los Angeles on an All Nippon Airways (ANA) flight Tuesday when, four hours into the ride, the plane abruptly changed course and returned to LAX.

“(A) flying first for me: 4 hours into an 11 hour flight and we are turning around because we have a passenger who isn’t supposed to be on this plane. Why . . . why do we all gotta go back, I do not know,” Teigen tweeted.

Teigen was remarkably good-natured about the whole experience and even expressed sympathy for the (apparently accidental) stowaways, who “must be mortified,” she wrote.

“Lmao after all this I will have spent 8 hours on a flight to nowhere. Like we were all just havin a great time up here flyin in the sky watching gran torino time to go home now.”

“At the time during the flight, the pilot in command was presented with information about the discrepancy in the passenger manifest. Based on the available information in flight, he made the correct decision to return to LAX,” the airline said in a statement. “ANA supports the decision of the pilot, out of the abundance of caution and safety for the passengers and crew on-board.”

The two unauthorized passengers had moved through security checkpoints together and gone through the TSA’s 20 layers of security — both seen and unseen — before they made it to the terminal, a government official said. The passenger with an ANA boarding pass was scheduled for another flight to Tokyo that day, the official said. Details on the second passenger were not immediately addressed.

It was up to the airline’s employees to ensure the passengers had the proper boarding passes for the flight, authorities said.

Once the flight returned in Los Angeles and passengers exited the aircraft, the FBI interviewed the passengers, the government official said.

No arrests have been made, according to the FBI.

After spending some time in a lounge, where she ate ramen and caught up on Real Housewives, Teigen and the rest of the passengers once again took off just before 2 a.m. — more than 14 hours after they first left LAX.

In its initial statement, All Nippon Airways said a mix-up between a passenger and the flight crew led to Tuesday’s abrupt turnaround.

“ANA is researching the situation currently to determine how the passenger boarded the flight. ANA would like to express its apologies to the passengers for the inconvenience,” the statement read. With files from the Washington Post

“Lmao after all this I will have spent 8 hours on a flight to nowhere.” CHRISSY TEIGEN, MODEL IN TWEET AS INCIDENT UNFOLDED