United Flight 897 Returned to Dulles

[Randy W]

Flight from Washington to Beijing forced to turn around in mid-air after a mother who had kidnapped child from father found on board

 

The FBI contacted Flight 897 in mid-air and asked that it return to D.C. soon after its midday takeoff. The plane landed back at the airport around 5pm.

A United Airlines flight bound for Beijing from D.C. was turned around in mid-air on Thursday after a mother who was kidnapping her child was reported on board

 

. . .

 

The mother was taken into custody at the gate and the child reunited with the father, the FBI told MailOnline today.

 

The family has not yet been identified but the alleged kidnapping occurred following a custody issue, a spokesman said.

 

 

 

from ABC News - http://abcnews.go.com/US/united-airlines-plane-returns-dc-area-airport-child/story?id=25255304

[lhp]

More on the same story: Plane turns back to Dulles so FBI can arrest mom in parental kidnapping case

 

A direct United Airlines flight from Dulles airport to Beijing turned around mid-flight Thursday at the request of FBI agents, who then arrested a passenger in connection with a possible international parental kidnapping after the plane landed.

Lindsay Ram, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Washington field office, said the mother, Wenjing Liu, was arrested Thursday under probable cause of international parental kidnapping. Her plane, which took off from Washington Dulles International Airport around noon Thursday, landed back at the same airport at 5 p.m., Ram said.

According to court documents, she was charged with knowingly and unlawfully attempting to remove her son from the United States with intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of parental rights.

…

Ram said the boy’s father called local authorities, who then contacted the FBI about the alleged kidnapping. After researching the parents’ child custody agreement, Ram said, agents reached out to the airline and had pilots turn the plane around mid-air.

Ram said the plane was over North America when it headed back to Dulles.

The child and mother got off the plane, and the mother was taken into custody. Ram said the child went home with his father.

…

Liu is a Chinese citizen and was married in Leesburg, Va. to the boy’s father in 2007 and lived in various locations in Virginia. The boy, who has dual United States and Chinese citizenship, was born in 2010 and the pair divorced in 2013. The pair had joint legal custody of the child, and the custody order said that neither party could travel with the child outside the United States without written and notarized consent of the other party.

According to an affidavit by an FBI agent, Liu told the boy’s father in an e-mail on Thursday morning that her grandmother was dying, so she and the boy were flying back to China. The father told her the child could not go because she would not be able to send him to school, and she e-mailed back saying that she already booked the plane ticket and they were leaving immediately, the court documents say.

Authorities said that Liu told the father that she was taking the trip because she had been notified about her grandmother’s declining health on Wednesday, but travel documents show that she made flight reservations for one-way airline tickets on Aug. 27.

 

Interesting that the child is reporting as having 'dual citizenship'; I thought China doesn't allow it. If I were the father, I'd make sure to contact the Chinese Embassy and get the kid's Chinese passport (and citizenship) cancelled.

 

I'm very glad the father didn't lose his child. Seems like you hear about so many of these cases; when I talked to my wife about it she mentioned how common this sort of thing is in China (wives running away with the children) because they 'have no other alternative'.

[tsap seui]

Wow, that flight (897) is the very flight (a direct flight to Beijing) we use to go over yonder. Flight 898 on the way back. I'll bet that was some happy (sic) people on that packed flight....take off and then have to return to Dulles. Once on that flight we had gotten over Canada and had to return for some malfunction....it really sucks. They had to find another plane, and another flight crew with the FAA laws. United scrambled and got a crew together and they gave us a real nice hotel in Beijing...Air China gave us another flight to Shenyang and all was well....just a long trip.

 

tsap seui

[dnoblett]

Here is the State Department's website covering this: http://travel.state.gov/content/childabduction/english.html