Air France A350 Pilots Denied Clearance by Chicago O’Hare, Flight Returns to Paris

US Customs & Border Protection (CBP) require airlines to give 24 hour notice to the designation airport of their arrival time (with the appropriate manifests etc.) If the required information has not been submitted then clearance to land will be denied. In this case Chicago O'Hare presumably didn't have the necessary information and hence would have denied clearance.

I think we can assume that someone at Air France had clearly messed up, and with no chance of landing in the US, the least worst option was a return to Paris.

If it was Immigration who rejected the flight on security grounds, then it would apply to all USA airports. If the individual had a wider "reputation" then maybe Canada would also reject him/her. By definition that person had already been accepted in France so maybe that was the only acceptable landing point. Lots of unknowns and assumptions of course.

The report says simply that it was denied landing permission, and doesn't mention air traffic controllers. Alternative US airports may have been unavailable for the same reason - not having filed a passenger manifest with them before departure, or whatever. Following the rules, especially for foreigners, is apparently more important than common sense.

By Helen WilliamJune 30, 20254 Mins Read

Add in the speculation as to why it turned back and you have a story that should never have been printed.

Most of these sites are created specifically for the purpose of serving ads. If you notice the format, each page renders at least six or more in-line advertisements using a structure that forces the reader to scroll past them to reach the next paragraph. The "reporting" is written with as little effort as possible with the main focus being a title or thumbnail that grabs attention. If you are really interested in the story, rather than clicking the link paste the text into ChatGPT or something similar that suppresses the advertisements.

Or as I noted.. Simply Paper Work could cause it as well!

We can speculate all we want but until the reason is released, if it is ever released, it’s all just guessing.

Let’s try to piece this together. It was not half way according to the report and the published flight track. By flight time, the turn around happened about two hours into an eight plus hour flight. Looking at the flight track, it seems to be about 950 NM after departure which correlates to about two hours. Two hours out, two hours back. Four hours ona return is not half way (ok a quarter of the way if you want but I don’t think they actually got that far). O’Hare “controllers” had nothing to do with this issue, the flight would have been being handled by Shanwick. The remainder of the article talking about the so called similar incident is so much hooy. ORD is one of the largest airports in the world and handles every conceivable aircraft without restriction. It’s not clear at all what the reason was, it’s also quite possible, especially considering the location of the turn around the there was an inflight malfunction that precluded entry into the oceanic airspace although considering where they were going it should have been possible to continue to destination by a some more northerly route.

Was that a tongue in cheek spelling error: "role" or "roll", as in toilet paper roll?

It used to be, but over the past three years or more, it's become infested by weevils.

You must be new here. Been that way for 15 years.

I wish they would keep their childish fighting on X and Facebook. I can see discussing politics in some of the squawks that are about politics within aviation but even then they could leave the partisan BS out of it.

Na man. This place is "everything that's wrong with aviation is the liberal, commie, whatever race that is not whites fault".

The flight departed at 12:49 and turned back at 16:30. That's almost 4 hours or half way through an 8 hour 20 minute flight. If "they probably (?) had a VHF radio issue or other mechanical issue" it would have been safer to continue to the nearest airport. Does a "simple paperwork issue" justify turning back after almost 4 hours ?

Just curious. Even if there was a prohibited passenger on board, couldn't the authorities take them into custody and send them right back to France?

Very sad that today's political climate can result in refused landings because of paperwork. If there wasn't time to check the passenger list due to late submission, passengers could have been held at the airport for a couple of hours rather than sending them back across the Atlantic with a day's delay. The article compares this with AA780 from Philadelphia to Naples diverted mid-flight to land at Rome rather than Naples, but that was quite different. Naples was not certified to land the larger aircraft substituted for the original, and an alternative nearby airport that was certified was found rather than simply refusing to land the aircraft.

Cannot people read a map anymore?

I cant find the Gulf of America on any map ...

Are aliens from Mars licensed to fly in the USA and Europe?

Frikken Aliens causing all this ruckus…

Does anyone actually read the ads?

the plane was larger than allowed for the airport // airport accommodates the slightly smaller 787-8,

All joking apart you make some valid points. If (a serious IF) the refusal was the result of a technical paper cockup, or a "suspect" passenger or similar cause, then was the expensive and passenger upsetting outcome really the best way of resolving the problem?

With instant communication now part of our global lifestyle and clearly still several hours flight time remaining it seems that common sense may have been overlooked on this occasion.

At this point we don’t actually know the reason it turned around. So making assumptions based on speculation really doesn’t get us anywhere. It could be something as simple as a typo in the paperwork.

There is not a plane in service anywhere in the world other than the stratolauncher that O'Hare cannot accommodate.

are you replying to the wrong story? This is about an A350, not about the B787 going into Naples.

I truly wish that politics would be avoided on an aviation forum. It's bad enough that we have to put up with tons of what you call fake news media on the subject, please have your political arguments elsewhere.

Time to move Mike. Go join All your libtard celebrity friends around the world

Wait is this a serious question? lmao

Are you mental?

Irrelevant. O’Hare handles any commercial aircraft built. The second half of that article bringing up the the Naples issue was also irrelevant and unrelated to the AF turnaround. Really poor journalism.

Then why would you read them?

No the French don't "do it all the time", and even if they did, taking revenge for a perceived personal wrong would be unprofessional. Yes, perhaps someone was over zealous, and yes, air traffic controllers do strike, but petty unprofessional retaliation ? No.

Another suggestion could be an ATC just got divorced from his French wife, who booked her return to France on AF137 (the A350 return flight) on this very day. Kinda revenge, so human... (how do I perform on today's stupidity challenge ?)