Editorials

SAN FRANCISCO — A Delta flight from Atlanta to Japan was forced back to the United States after Russian air traffic controllers said it didn’t have permission to fly through their airspace. 

Delta Air Lines Flight 55, carrying 203 passengers and 15 crew members, was about 20 minutes into Russian airspace when the controllers notified pilots the flight lacked proper clearance, a Delta spokesman said. 

About 9 hours into the flight, the plane had to turn around and fly 5 more hours to recross the Pacific and land in San Francisco early Thursday morning. 

“I’m not afraid. I miss Mommy,” said 7-year-old Ai Csuka, whose reunion with her mother was delayed by a day. 

Csuka and her father, who teaches at a language school in Japan, boarded a United flight late Thursday morning for what they hoped was the final leg of their journey. 

Robert Usov, a spokesman for the civil aviation sector of the Russian Air Traffic Control Center in Moscow, said Delta had failed to send a request in time for permission to fly through Russian airspace but that it was given special clearance by Moscow. 

“The flight wasn’t in our plan. However, we decided to let the plane (fly) through our airspace and gave corresponding orders to the Khabarovsk regional air traffic control center. I don’t know what the problem was but, I repeat, we let the Delta flight in,” Usov said. “Maybe there was some misunderstanding.” 

Top officials at the office in Khabarovsk, the control site for flights entering or leaving Russia over the Pacific route, weren’t available for comment. 

Alexander Lebedev, duty officer at the Moscow control center, said he couldn’t comment on why the plane was turned back. Lebedev said Thursday’s and Friday’s flights would be allowed to pass “as a charter” to enable Delta to finish all the necessary formalities. 

“It was an isolated incident,” said Delta spokeswoman Alesia Watson. “Something happened that just normally doesn’t happen. It was an odd set of circumstances and steps have been taken to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.” 

Delta has three other flights each day to Japan that traverse Russian airspace. None of those flights were affected, Watson said.  

Thursday’s flight took off at about 10:30 a.m. EDT from Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport. 

Frustrated passengers from the aborted flight were given hotel rooms and a $6 meal voucher. They were rebooked on other flights to Japan starting Thursday morning, most traveling aboard two United flights. 

“Basically, I could have driven here a lot faster if I had a car,” passenger Bill Reilly said as he left the plane in San Francisco. 

Another passenger on board the Delta flight, Mark Matthews of Macon, Ga., said there was some concern about the safety of the re-routed flight, given the current standoff between the United States and China over the return of 24 military crew members detained since a mid-air collision. 

“I didn’t see any MiG 29s on our flanks, but I’m sure it did cross everybody’s mind,” Matthews said. 

In 1983, Soviet fighter planes shot down a Korean Airlines passenger jet after it strayed into Soviet airspace. All 269 people aboard that flight died.