False Alarm: American Airlines 777-300ER Makes U-Turn Over Pacific Ocean

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Passengers headed for Sydney, Australia last night on American Airlines ended up back in Los Angeles after a false alarm led to a 777-300ER U-turn, emergency landing at LAX, and a flight to nowhere.

American Airlines 777-300ER U-Turn Over Pacific AFter False Alarm Onboad

On Wednesday, October 23, 2024, American Airlines flight 73 took off from Los Angeles (LAX) five minutes behind schedule at 10:35 pm and took off at 11:02 pm PT. The flight was operated by a Boeing 777-300ER (registration N725AN).

Just an hour into the flight, however, it made a U-turn over the Pacific and headed back for Los Angeles, touching down at LAX at 1:50 am…a three-hour flight to nowhere. The flight never rose about 28,000 feet.

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It has since emerged that the entire diversion was predicated on a false alarm.

Pilots received an alarm in the flight deck indicating a cargo bay door was open. Erring on the side of caution, the choice was made to immediately divert back to Los Angeles. Upon landing, it was discovered the cargo door was closed and the problem was simply a light malfunction.

Passengers were placed in hotels overnight and provided meal vouchers. The delayed flight to Sydney is scheduled to take off at 1:10 pm PT using the same aircraft, meaning AA73 will operate twice today. Hopefully this time the passengers will make it all the way to the land down under.