{"id":375257,"date":"2026-06-26T01:57:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T01:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/375257\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T01:57:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T01:57:14","slug":"flight-from-china-to-san-francisco-diverted-after-passengers-wild-scuffle-with-flight-attendant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/375257\/","title":{"rendered":"Flight from China to San Francisco diverted after passenger\u2019s wild scuffle with flight attendant"},"content":{"rendered":"

A United Airlines flight bound for San Francisco was forced to make an unscheduled landing in Japan after an unruly passenger allegedly caused chaos mid-flight, triggering a police response and hours-long delays.<\/p>\n

Passengers said the travel nightmare unfolded shortly after takeoff, when the passenger\u2019s behavior rapidly spiraled.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The United Airlines flight bound for San Francisco was forced to make an unscheduled landing in Japan. reddit\/r\/unitedairlines<\/p>\n

United Flight UA858 took off from Shanghai Pudong Airport at 12:43 p.m. Wednesday aboard a Boeing 777-300 with 285 passengers and 16 crew members on board.<\/p>\n

About two hours into the trans-Pacific trip, the crew diverted the jet to Tokyo Narita Airport, where it touched down at 4:37 p.m. local time, according to flight tracking data.<\/p>\n

Once the plane was on the ground, at least seven officers from the Chiba Prefectural Police boarded the aircraft and escorted the Chinese-speaking passenger at the center of the disturbance off the flight.<\/p>\n

\"Once<\/p>\n

Once the plane was on the ground, at least seven officers boarded the aircraft. Threads<\/p>\n

\"Passengers<\/p>\n

Passengers said the travel nightmare unfolded shortly after takeoff, when the passenger\u2019s behavior rapidly spiraled. reddit.r\/unitedairlines<\/p>\n

\u201cShe tossed all the documents in her seat pockets in the air, shouted cuss words periodically, and also periodically started hitting herself,\u201d one witness said.<\/p>\n

The same account described confrontations with cabin crew, including claims that the passenger accused staff of trying to \u201coppress\u201d her.<\/p>\n

During one interaction, a purser attempted to intervene but was reportedly met with physical resistance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crew captain [purser] tapped several times on her shoulder for her attention. In a startle reflex without even seeing who it was, she elbowed back,\u201d the witness said.<\/p>\n

Disruption continued during meal service, with passengers saying she threw food packaging onto the floor and repeatedly shouted in the cabin.<\/p>\n

Air marshals reportedly issued warnings before the captain made the decision to divert the aircraft for safety reasons<\/p>\n

\"About<\/p>\n

About two hours into the trans-Pacific trip, the crew diverted the jet to Tokyo Narita Airport. NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n

After landing in Tokyo, police escorted the passenger off the aircraft. <\/p>\n

Several travelers said there was confusion onboard about the removal.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, I felt it was a mix of misunderstanding, overreaction, and mismanagement from both sides,\u201d one passenger said.<\/p>\n

Following the unscheduled stop, passengers reported that a maintenance issue was discovered, delaying the onward journey.<\/p>\n

The flight eventually resumed at around 6:15 p.m. and continued on to San Francisco, arriving around an hour and 40 minutes later than scheduled after the delay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A United Airlines flight bound for San Francisco was forced to make an unscheduled landing in Japan after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[152042,16208,101,103,102,104,106,105,152039,152041,61969,70860,13026,51519,152040],"class_list":["post-375257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-flight-tracking","tag-passenger","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-shanghai-pudong-airport","tag-the-passenger","tag-tokyo-narita-airport","tag-travel-nightmare","tag-united-airlines","tag-united-airlines-flight","tag-unruly-passenger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}