Sketchy Plane Situation, any idea WTF Happened? (long)

[jumpthru]

So I am flying back to school in Los Angeles (USC) from Seattle Washington. We load on the plane, take off, nothing unusual. We have a 90mph tailwind and are making great time.

About 45 minutes to an hour into the flight almost 1/2 way to Los Angeles the pilot comes on the intercom and says "Uhhh, ground control just ordered us to return to Seattle due to an improperly loaded piece of luggage that they need back in Seattle. We will be given priority landing at Seatac airport. Again, sorry for the inconvience but they REALLY need this piece of luggage back in Seattle."

WTF??

Commotion ensues as everyone kind of starts whispering back and forth. Stewardesses say they know nothing more. I am thinking to myself that it's almost 100% for sure they are lieing, and that there is a mechanical problem or other serious issue that they aren't being up front about. I eventually get a stewardess to say that it has something to do with "a battery" in a piece of luggage?

The plane is turned around and we fly back to Seattle another 45 minutes and land without incident. There are no firetrucks on the runway as some people on the plane said they expected (as I did too). We wait a few minutes to taxi in. The captain comes on and says that "we will only be here for less than 5 minutes, and we will be back on our way. Just need to unload the piece of luggage and fill out the paperwork." Finally we taxi in and park. We are definitly there for more than 5 minutes. No luggage cart is brought up to the plane. No swat officers swarm the plane as would be expected if there was a terrorist threat or a bomb in a piece of carry on luggage. In fact I don't see anyone offical looking come on the plane at all, or anything unloaded.

Finally the captain comes on and says they are "Shutting the door and we will be taking off soon." and gives the following explanation: "Thank you for your patience. There was a piece of carryon luggage that contained prohibited items. The plane was out of FAA compliance and was required to return to Seatac to come into FAA compliance." The pilot sort of stumbles with his words before saying carryon as if he was making this up on the spot.

We take off, fly to LA, and land without incident, and this flight which should of taken a brisk 2 hours ends up being a 6 hour adventure. They never give us a better explanation, never explain why the story changed from cargo to carryon luggage, never give us a sandwhich or a free ticket. Just some peanuts.

So...

WTF????

Why and how would they discover that a piece of carry on luggage contained prohibited items 45 minutes in the flight??

Any way I analyse the situation nothing makes since:

1) There was a serious mechanical issue--

Generally they will be truthful in this situation and say that we are having mechanical issues. If it was truly serious they would do an emergency landing in Portland or any other of the many airports that were closer than returning all the way to Seattle. If it wasn't serious they would continue to L.A., since we were already half way there.

2) There was something accidently loaded on the plane that they seriously needed in Seattle? WTF possibly could be so important that they would incovience 200 people, when we are already half way to L.A. and they could just load it on the next plane back to Seattle? (I was thinking maybe the last pilot to fly this plane left the keys to another plane in the glove compartment).

3) There was a bomb/terrorist: SWAT team didn't board and they wouldn't have announced we are returning to Seattle. They would have just made an emergency landing.

4) A medical device was loaded on the plane for the previous flight and forgot to be unloaded. Someone said that when someone has a motorized scooter they load it as carry on and disconnect the battery. Perhaps they forgot to unload the battery, and when they discovered they forgot it they needed to unload the battery since it was not authorized to have a battery on board. This seems retarded, and again we could have just landed in Portland or something.

5) ?????

Sorry for this long post, but I am now way more curious than anything and really want to know what the [censored] happened that would be reason to turn around half way there and incovience 200 people.

Someone, please explain. Anyone have similar situations occur to them?

[edfurlong]

[ QUOTE ]
I was thinking maybe the last pilot to fly this plane left the keys to another plane in the glove compartment

[/ QUOTE ]

This seems most likely.

[bawcerelli]

Pilot left keys in there seems unlikely to me.

[jumpthru]

[ QUOTE ]
Pilot left keys in there seems unlikely to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, obviously that was a [censored] joke. Let's get back on topic here. Someone must be a commerical pilot or know why they would ever pull a stunt like this. I crave to know.

[bawcerelli]

You're going to call and complain and find out why they did that right? At least get a free flight out of it.

[josh_x]

I'm perplexed.

[ThreeMartini]

Remember the JetBlue crash in the Florida Everglades? THe accident was caused my improperly labeled oxygen generators in the forward cargo area.

Perhaps they found themelves in a similar situation?

[d10]

It seems unlikely that the pilot would lie about what's going on. My guess is there was something very important on board the plane that was needed in Seattle.

[DJ Sensei]

theres no reason for them to go all the way back to seattle unless they actually had something that had to go back to seattle quickly. specialized medical equipment or something, perhaps. unlikely that it was something malicious.

[Osprey]

Valujet- Jetblue had that jammed landing gear a while ago, though.

2nd edit: Was partially right the first time, Valujet became Airtran.

[ QUOTE ]
Remember the JetBlue crash in the Florida Everglades? THe accident was caused my improperly labeled oxygen generators in the forward cargo area.

Perhaps they found themelves in a similar situation?

[/ QUOTE ]