Airline travel is hard enough as it is, and there’s always the prospect of finding yourself at the wrong end of yet another airline screwup. Lost luggage is an everyday occurance, but lost people? It does happen.

China Airlines

One China:- Mark Dance and Alfie O’Neill, from Katikati, New Zealand, were supposed to catch a China Airlines (Taiwan based) flight from Sydney to Auckland. Also departing at the same time was an Air China flight to Beijing.

 The duo managed to get on the wrong one, and by the time they figured out why so many Chinese were traveling to Auckland,  the plane was at 37,000 feet and well on it’s way to Beijing. They’re not likely to forget the tense 1 hour drama in Beijing surrounded by armed guards.

Nine hours later, Dance and O’Neill found themselves back in Sydney, with free first class tickets for the next Quantas Flight to Auckland, and a chauffer-driven ride back home to Katikati.

Airline Casket

Pet shop Corpse:- In March last year, Philadelphia Police responded to a call from a Pets Plus USA store. Someone had delivered a corpse in a casket.

One of the shop’s employees was supposed to pick up a delivery of some exotic fish from US Airways. Instead, the airline had accidently handed over the dead Mr. Jon Kenoyer from Santee, CA, whose body was being sent to a research company in Allentown, PA.

US Airways apologized, Kenoyer was sent off to further the cause of research, and the fish did not survive the mixup.

Unaccompanied Minors

Minor Mishaps:- Jonathan Kamens dropped off his 10 yr old daughter Miriam at Boston’s Logan Int’l Airport, in the custody of Continental Airlines employees. The child’s grandparents were waiting to pick her up in Cleveland. But Miriam ended up in Newark, NJ.

Apparently the same gate was also being used to board passengers for another plane departing at the same time, and an airline employee escorted her into the wrong one. No one checked the paperwork, and for 45 minutes after the plane landed in Cleveland sans Mariam, no one knew where she was.

One day before that, Continental had sent 8-yr old Taylor Williams from Houston to Fayetteville, Ark. instead of to Charlotte. Last month, Delta joined Continental in the ‘let’s lose an unaccompanied minor’ game by letting 8-year-old Kenyon Crosby miss his connecting flight in Atlanta, and then putting his father on hold for 30 minutes while they scrambled to find the boy. 

Big Fiddle in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Accidental Tourists:- In Aug ’09, Joannes Rutten and his 15 yr. old grandson Nick Rutten were on their way from Amsterdam, Netherlands to visit family in Sydney, Australia. Instead, they found themselves fiddling in a hotel in Sydney on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada.

They’re not the first ones who ended up in the wrong Sydney, and they’re not likely to be the last. In Sept 2008, Monique Rozanes Torres Aguero from Buenos Aires, Argentina had the same experience. Before that, it was Raeoul Sebastian and Emma Nunn, of London, England. Cape Breton awaits its next accidental tourist.

Photo credits:- China Airlines – Anynobody; Airline casket – Brent, Nashville; Sydney fiddle – Smudge 9000; Free puppy – Stephan Spencer