What happens if a domestic flight lands in a foreign country due to an emergency?

Question

In a question about travel to Puerto Rico Michael Hampton writes the following:

Note also that you should bring your green card and passport if you travel to or from Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands. While this is a purely domestic flight, and it is not strictly required for you to have your passport, if the flight has an emergency it may need to divert to an airport at an island which is not part of the USA. You will need your travel documents if this happens.

Are there historical examples of this happening, either in Puerto Rico or elsewhere? Presumably most passengers on the plane will have no passports in this case and would thus be ineligible to enter under default circumstances. Is it thus recommended to take a passport if your flight goes over foreign territory?

Answer 1

For what it's worth, I once was in a similar situation myself. I was on a flight from USA to UK, which had to make an emergency landing in Canada (and we spent about 24 hours in Canada before proceeding to the UK).

While I had a USA passport, more than half of the passengers would have required a visa to enter Canada. Those who needed a visa were separated out and processed very thoroughly. As we landed on a military base (it was a genuine emergency - fire onboard), we were housed in the army barracks. Those who would need a visa were housed in a separate area and were warned not to attempt to leave the base. Their movements were very limited for these 24 hours.

To "separate out", once we got out of the aircraft, they called by passport countries, i.e. "Passengers with USA passports, please step this way; passengers with Thai passports please step this way, etc."

Those of us that didn't need a visa to visit Canada were given freedom to move pretty much anywhere apart from areas marked as restricted. We could leave the base if wanted to, although we were advised that it was a few km to the nearest town and that polar bears had been spotted nearby, so it may not be very safe to walk.

When we finally boarded the plan the next day, they made sure that we were all onboard. They did announce that we would not be allowed to leave if at least one of the passengers were not present.

Answer 2

A real life example of this occurred on Sept 11 2001 when hundreds of planes destined for the US were forced to land in other countries, mainly Canada. While almost all would have had passports, many would not have had permission to enter Canada.

The procedure was that each entrant was processed by officials, details were taken and each given emergency permission to enter. In a genuine emergency it would seem likely that a similar procedure would be followed. It would be very unlikely that person wishing to enter a country illegally would happen to be on a flight that was diverted there.

Answer 3

Good summary from https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g1-i10702-k13222947-o10-Plane_diverted_visa_question-Air_Travel.html:

Depends on circumstances, the duration of stay, the infrastructure of the airport and the flexibility and availability of immigration.

Worst case: passenger will stay in a separate room at the airport.

Best case: the receive a visa (eg. transit visa) or a solution is find to let the passenger temporary into the country.

The same link contains a few people sharing their experience, e.g.:

 I encountered the overnight situation once before. All the passengers were put up in a hotel near the airport. Those of us with permission to enter the country went through normal immigration and got on the hotel bus. The others were escorted as a group to the bus but their passports were taken and held till the next day (not sure who actually had the passports, hotel, airline, authorities). Those of us who had passports could go outside the hotel, those without were not allowed out.

Answer 4

The case I am about to write is not regarding a domestic flight - but still I will write my two-cents. Basically @Franck-Demoncourt 's answer sums up the answer and some scenarios, one of them is titled as : worst-case.

I would like to offer even a worse one, where a certain plane of a certain country actually lands for some reason in a third-party country which is friendly to the Airplane's origin country but hostile to some of the passenger's Country and passport.

This is not just a theoretical situation as it happened to one of my colleagues.

In such a case, to my understanding - the world conventions state that the Crew of the plane ( basically - the pilot / captain ) must offer the affected passengers the option to stay on the plane and the captain / pilot ( highest grade officer in charge ) also have the obligation to stay with them if the passengers choose so in order to offer protection ( the plane itself is considered a territory of the plane's origin country )

As said before - this is not directly an answer to the question that is about domestic flights and lack of passports - but still I thought it is a good chance to give this example also in order for people to know that:

• A this can happen.
• B What to do in this situation as regarding to your rights as a passenger.

P.S

I will try to find reference for the convention mentioned or the rules implied and I will post if I can find them. If anyone else have the source for these - please feel free to post / edit this answer..

Answer 5

Here is a real example from 2 years ago.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/world/europe/air-france-flight-siberia.html

Air France Paris -> Shanghai emergency landed in Irkutsk. The Russians were accommodating but the rescue plane sent from France broke again because of freezing hydraulics, requiring another one from China. The passengers were not allowed to exit the airport and were stuck in Siberia, during winter, for 3 days.

Answer 6

We finally have a precedent of this happening on a domestic flight. On January 22nd 2024 flight EZY319 from Edinburgh to Bristol (both in the UK) was required to divert to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.

Passengers have been forced to sleep on floors after their Bristol Airport flight was diverted 400 miles away to Paris. The easyJet flight, which took off from Edinburgh yesterday afternoon, circled Bristol for 'some time' before the pilot was forced to change route amid Storm Isha's strong gusts.

Tom Shepard said once they landed in the French capital they had to wait on the tarmac for around three hours while staff debated whether it was worth flying back to Bristol to see if the winds had dropped. It was then decided for everyone to stay in Paris.

Dozens of people on the flight did not have a passport, so they were forced to stay in the airport. They were offered water and food but some, including elderly passengers, had to sleep on the floor.

...

EasyJet staff have been 'helpful' in keeping passengers updated and they 'wanted to help people into hotels', according to Tom. But the French authorities wouldn't let passengers leave the terminal without passports.

Passengers are now hoping to board a plane at 1pm to take them back to Bristol. Several flights have been diverted and cancelled already today as strong winds remain in the area.

So it seems like there may indeed be rare instances where having your passport could be helpful on a domestic flight. Though I don't think anyone could've predicted that a flight to Bristol would be diverted all the way to Paris rather than another British airport.