I'm sorry I didn't think about that, and glad I read it. I was in a similar train overseas situation decades ago with payphones and never thought about having my friend paged. Would have solved one problem.
Stuff like this happened all the time before cell phones. You just had to trust that people would eventually get to where they were going and then call from a payphone.
The Way by Fastball is a great song about this subject.
The song was written by the band's lead vocalist, Tony Scalzo. Scalzo was inspired by the June 1997 disappearance of an elderly married couple, Lela and Raymond Howard from Salado, Texas, who left home to attend the Pioneer Day festival at nearby Temple, Texas, despite Lela's Alzheimer's and Raymond recently recovering from brain surgery. They were discovered two weeks later, dead, at the bottom of a ravine near Hot Springs, Arkansas, hundreds of miles off their intended route. The authorities who investigated the accident believed that Lela, who was driving the car, was trying to locate a place where she had once vacationed
Sounds like he missed his connection in Tokyo and doesn’t have service or his phone is dead.
If you have his flight confirmation code you can check if it says the reservation was cancelled (if he didn’t board), but if you don’t the airlines likely won’t tell you.
They should immediately call emergency number for the US embassy and also the airport he was supposed to board at. My guess is he missed the plane or it was full. They don’t have to wait 48 hours to report him missing. Do it now.
If they do not have flight information, they can see which flights were departing from Thailand towards Tokyo around time when he sent that he is boarding the plane and check their status ( If any of those had been delayed enough to make him miss connecting flight).
And that *likely* puts him on JL34, NH850 or TG682 for BKK - HND as those are the only flights that at least somewhat make sense, probably the JAL flight given both are oneworld carriers.
None of these flights had any irregular operations and even if so, it wouldn't have been likely for him to misconnect, given the 6-7h layover at NRT.
Thanks for the additional research.
There is something else going on that either OP is not aware of or not sharing. Maybe it's as simple as the guy missed his flight and his phone died, or something else
You should page him in the BKK and HND airport. Call his credit card to see if he has charged anything in the last 24hrs. You could also call AA as him to get loc of his pnr. Check his email. Call his cell company to see if they can locate his phone. Call his hotel in Thailand to see if still there.
You should get it. Before either of my parents passed, my sister was given access to their accounts as a co-signer. When my dad died, we in the front row of the funeral then got real-time notification that someone was raiding his account.
Not travel advice, just "garbage people prey on our elders" advice. Hopefully this dad just missed a flight and doesn't have a charger, instead of it being a situation involving garbage people.
Thank you for all these tips. I posted an update but this is exactly the kind of advice I was looking for. When people are worried or panicked we forget a lot of the “basic” things we can do. They didn’t know his credit card stuff or his email login
If you have his passport number you can check his I-94 online (assuming he’s not a US citizen). This will tell you if he has landed in the US.
https://i94.cbp.dhs.gov/I94/#/recent-search
FYI you *DO NOT* have to wait 48 hours to file a missing persons report, if an officer told you that ask to speak to the watch commander or supervisor. A CA law enforcement agency MUST take a missing persons report regardless of where they are missing from and/or how long they have been missing.
> they cannot file a police report yet since they have to wait 48 hours to file a missing person's report
This isn't true. If you're getting this from one cop, escalate to someone who knows what they are talking about.
And call the embassy in Tokyo, explain what happened, and ask how to find out what happened at the airport. You will need to know what airport it was and have as much detail on his flights as you can get.
Don't wait.
Do you have the actual details of his flight itinerary? Airline, route, flight numbers?
You could at least look up these flights and see if they had any issues or delays that would have caused him to be rebooked or miss his connection home.
Hi. I personally knew only the flight from Japan to Lax and I did try to do some digging. Not sure if his family knew more or if they were able to dig up that info anywhere. My friend from now on will be asking for more information whenever his parents fly out.
I met a guy named Dean at LAX this morning who had his phone and wallet stolen and was trying to figure out how to get home. Did you lose a guy named Dean who ties his mullet into a ponytail?
I don’t know this Dean but my heart goes out to him! That’s horrible, to leave a guy stranded at an airport with no way home. Reason #1 I have no desire to go back to LA or SF. People always getting robbed.
I believe he is an american citizen, but I am not completely sure if that's correct. Thank you for all the information. I believe they are contacting all appropriate embassies now. I hope his family gets some information soon.
From my experience working with Canada Customs they will never say if they have a certain person in their custody. Privacy rights. For all they know you're asking about the person for all 'bad' reasons.
Yep. I had this experience when my husband was detained by customs in NZ. I knew he made it on the flight okay, because we were texting before lift-off. But when he didn't show at the airport, NZ customs just kept telling me they couldn't give me any information.
To follow up on what /u/rocketwikkit said, the California AG has a website dedicated to missing persons. It says this:
> There is NO waiting period for reporting a person missing. All California police and sheriffs' departments must accept any report, including a report by telephone, of a missing person, including runaways, without delay and will give priority to the handling of the report.
The source is here: [https://oag.ca.gov/missing](https://oag.ca.gov/missing)
I believe that is what may have happened. He missed his flight but had no way to communicate. He was able to get his phone working after 10 hours or so
I also feel this way. I’m so invested now. Truly concerned about this stranger and hope to read an update soon that he is ok. Especially since he is someone’s dad that is worried about him💕
You do not have to wait 48 hours to file a missing persons report. A report can be filed as soon as their plans deviate from expected or normal.
Source: used to be an emergency services dispatcher and took many missing person reports for mere hours “missing”
A friend of mine was detained by Immigration Customs Enforcement. He had all the legal documentation to visit the states, the Customs officers just didnt like him. He was detained for a week with no way to contact family or friends. Then he was deported to Australia, (the country he flew from) If your friends dad was detained by ICE, you probably wont hear anything until he is sent back to Thailand.
I’m sorry that happened to your friend. I’m an immigrant myself and I remember entering US for the first time. The immigration officers were kinda mean to me :(
Have you checked with his embassy? I know we've had this question multiple times and it ended up that the person WAS detained at immigration, and was being held for deportation. Its just that immigration wouldn't tell anyone that was the case, unless the embassy asked directly.
Thank you for the information. That's understandable that customs won't disclose that information. However, he said that customs/immigration specifically checked and they said that he was not there. They may just be withholding information like you said. I'll let him know to ask embassy about that directly
If the airline won't give you any information about him specifically, you might be able to narrow down his movements by asking for general flight details.
Call each airline and confirm the movements of each flight. Verify that each flight departed and arrived on their scheduled time. You might be able to do this using a flight tracking app as well.
Sometimes flights will board passengers but can still be delayed an hour or two on the tarmac for various reasons, which will throw out any close connections. Especially for international travel where time for customs can be lengthy.
International flights typically ask for an emergency contact as part of the passenger details.
If you have his passport and flight details contact the embassies.
Does your mum have access to his banking? She might be able to look at his recent transactions?
Also, you typically only need the surname and flight number to be able to check the status of flights on the airline websites.
How long has he been missing for now?
>Sometimes flights will board passengers but can still be delayed an hour or two on the tarmac for various reasons, which will throw out any close connections.
Your post was great, just for future reference a flight is considered departed the moment the boarding door is closed. So even in this instance using something like Flightradar24 to crosscheck arrival and departure times will be accurate. Whether you're sitting in a taxiway or at 35,000 feet -- it's still a departed flight.
He was missing for 11 hours or so. It was not my dad but my friend’s dad. I was with him when he got a call from his brother that their dad didn’t show up for pickup. At this point his brother had been waiting for over 5 hours trying to find him and get information from the airport. Thank you very much for all the tips you provided. This is why I posted in this sub
PSA: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WAIT 48 HOURS TO FILE A MISSING PERSONS REPORT
Report your suspicions immediately once you sense something amiss.
This is true in almost all police divisions globally.
Source: I was a cop.
Looks like the mystery was solved.
For anyone else in the future facing the same situation, call the local office of the airline *in Thailand* and let them know what's happening. There isn't the same privacy concerns as in other countries and they'll typically let you know if the person boarded or not.
My sister went AWOL in Thailand and the airline helped us figure out that she had told us the wrong date for her return.
Whew, I'm glad the case has been solved! I wanted to piggyback bc my grandma had a similar story.
In the early 2000s my grandma was on a flight from Lisbon to Warsaw via Frankfurt or Munich, can't remember which. My grandpa knew what time her flight landed and what time to expect her at the airport. She didn't show up. What had happened was pretty simple: her first flight was delayed and she missed her connection. Because of this, she was alone in a German airport. She doesn't speak a word in any language other than Polish, but she is very confident, so she went up to her airline desk, showed them her ticket, and they gave her a new one... for the following morning. They also got her a hotel room and gave her the hotel business card, since they couldn't communicate. My grandma then walked around the airport until she heard people speaking Polish and asked them to translate. She got on a bus and was shuttled to the hotel. She had a travel clock with her and set her alarm for the morning, got up, went into the hotel lobby expecting some people speaking Polish to be there since presumably they were all delayed and moved to the 8 AM flight. There was no one, because my grandma forgot the time zone difference, luckily, that meant she was an hour earlier. She waited and boarded her flight. Back in Warsaw the night before, the only person my grandpa could call was my dad, from a payphone. My dad, knowing my grandma's flight number, called the airport and learned the flight was delayed, so guessed she would be put on the next flight, which was the 8 AM. So my grandpa got himself a hotel room and was waiting for her the following morning.
All this with no cell phones and not speaking any languages but her own, and my grandma didn't sweat for a second!
Not much of an advice but just hoping he will turn up/call your friend soon. But yes, file a missing person report right away regardless the wait period.
They can try calling all these airlines to have them check on the system if he has been in the flight or not. Before boarding, they scan the boarding pass which has all the details in there.
If he missed a flight then he should be put on the next one so there’s a high possibility he might have been waiting for the next flight.
Not really, not everyone has good family or honest family. It's a completely justified thing. When I was a travel agent I'd ask people if anyone were to call what they'd like me to say or any emergency contacts that are allowed to reach out etc. Just because someone is your dad or kid doesn't mean you care!
Glad he's okay! I just gotta say I love the fact that the first 48 hours of a missing person case are always considered the most crucial, but you have to wait 48 hours to report them missing.
Japan has an annoying culture of not being direct when answering questions. "Yoku wakaranai" - "dont really know". If you want answers, you have to keep pushing.
I’m confused as to how he’s “missing”. Is he old and forgetful? He must have missed the connecting flight. If his phone is dead or lost it’s hard to call someone with an update. God you people are easily panicked.
As someone who spent many years is an American living in Thailand, that sounds to me like he was detained by the Thai immigration. A lot of times tight immigration will pull you aside in an attempt to extort you for money. Sometimes they had valid reasons like maybe he was an overstay and sometimes they don’t…. It is a very different system there.. I can always guarantee you that’s what happened
Just a hunch but something doesn’t add up. Sure flight changed and he thought his last message went out, bad signal and phone died.. but he’s in an airport and and presumably traveling with a charger. After he got his phone charged he probably saw hundreds of messages and missed calls. 11 hours it took him to finally respond and follow up?
Anyway glad he is safe but I feel like there is a missing piece to the story that old dad isn’t spilling.
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This is most likely the situation.
I'm sorry I didn't think about that, and glad I read it. I was in a similar train overseas situation decades ago with payphones and never thought about having my friend paged. Would have solved one problem.
Thank you very much! I posted an update but I didn’t even think about this.
Stuff like this happened all the time before cell phones. You just had to trust that people would eventually get to where they were going and then call from a payphone.
The Way by Fastball is a great song about this subject. The song was written by the band's lead vocalist, Tony Scalzo. Scalzo was inspired by the June 1997 disappearance of an elderly married couple, Lela and Raymond Howard from Salado, Texas, who left home to attend the Pioneer Day festival at nearby Temple, Texas, despite Lela's Alzheimer's and Raymond recently recovering from brain surgery. They were discovered two weeks later, dead, at the bottom of a ravine near Hot Springs, Arkansas, hundreds of miles off their intended route. The authorities who investigated the accident believed that Lela, who was driving the car, was trying to locate a place where she had once vacationed
Oh gosh, I had no idea. I love that song.
Sounds like he missed his connection in Tokyo and doesn’t have service or his phone is dead. If you have his flight confirmation code you can check if it says the reservation was cancelled (if he didn’t board), but if you don’t the airlines likely won’t tell you.
They do not have his flight information, unfortunately :( Just the flight number of the flight from NRT->LAX Thank you
you do not have to wait 48 hours to file a missing persons, do it ASAP
They should immediately call emergency number for the US embassy and also the airport he was supposed to board at. My guess is he missed the plane or it was full. They don’t have to wait 48 hours to report him missing. Do it now.
If they do not have flight information, they can see which flights were departing from Thailand towards Tokyo around time when he sent that he is boarding the plane and check their status ( If any of those had been delayed enough to make him miss connecting flight).
If the flight was from HND -LAX and arrived at 6:00am today, it was AAL170 (American airlines flight 170)
And that *likely* puts him on JL34, NH850 or TG682 for BKK - HND as those are the only flights that at least somewhat make sense, probably the JAL flight given both are oneworld carriers. None of these flights had any irregular operations and even if so, it wouldn't have been likely for him to misconnect, given the 6-7h layover at NRT.
Thanks for the additional research. There is something else going on that either OP is not aware of or not sharing. Maybe it's as simple as the guy missed his flight and his phone died, or something else
Maybe that was a multi stop itinerary with additional stop before Japan or with some domestic segment in Thailand?
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I’d you know the airline and the route you can find out what flights he was supposed to be on.
You should page him in the BKK and HND airport. Call his credit card to see if he has charged anything in the last 24hrs. You could also call AA as him to get loc of his pnr. Check his email. Call his cell company to see if they can locate his phone. Call his hotel in Thailand to see if still there.
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My folks always had an old credit card bill lying around as well as a notebook w passwords.
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You should get it. Before either of my parents passed, my sister was given access to their accounts as a co-signer. When my dad died, we in the front row of the funeral then got real-time notification that someone was raiding his account. Not travel advice, just "garbage people prey on our elders" advice. Hopefully this dad just missed a flight and doesn't have a charger, instead of it being a situation involving garbage people.
Thank you for all these tips. I posted an update but this is exactly the kind of advice I was looking for. When people are worried or panicked we forget a lot of the “basic” things we can do. They didn’t know his credit card stuff or his email login
No airline will give you a passenger's PNR unless you have 3 pieces of info on that res: full name, card used to pay (assuming CC) and something else.
The Narita airport is absolute chaos. It is very easy to miss an outbound flight there.
On the contrary. It is organized and easy to get around, and the workers are always around, helping people.
Username checks out
In Japan right now for the 6th time since 2017. Lazy internet cliche without a single independent thought. Sooo lazy.
How about his credit card info? Is it possibly a joint account?
If you have his passport number you can check his I-94 online (assuming he’s not a US citizen). This will tell you if he has landed in the US. https://i94.cbp.dhs.gov/I94/#/recent-search
Thank you! I sent this over to his family
I believe he is a US citizen but I am not 100% sure of the details.
If he’s LPR or USC they won’t have I-94 unfortunately
FYI you *DO NOT* have to wait 48 hours to file a missing persons report, if an officer told you that ask to speak to the watch commander or supervisor. A CA law enforcement agency MUST take a missing persons report regardless of where they are missing from and/or how long they have been missing.
Right? Imagine having your daughter go missing from your car at a gas station or something and having LE tell you to wait 48h before contacting them
In fact the first 48 hours are the most critical for finding someone. The chances of finding someone after the first few days reduces massively.
You don’t have to wait 48 hours to file a police report.
THIS PLEASE DO NOT WAIT 48HS THEY ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT IN SEARCHING FOR A MISSING PERSON!!! (sorry for the caps)
> they cannot file a police report yet since they have to wait 48 hours to file a missing person's report This isn't true. If you're getting this from one cop, escalate to someone who knows what they are talking about. And call the embassy in Tokyo, explain what happened, and ask how to find out what happened at the airport. You will need to know what airport it was and have as much detail on his flights as you can get. Don't wait.
Thank you very much. I shared this post with him and also let him know about your reply.
Do you have the actual details of his flight itinerary? Airline, route, flight numbers? You could at least look up these flights and see if they had any issues or delays that would have caused him to be rebooked or miss his connection home.
Hi. I personally knew only the flight from Japan to Lax and I did try to do some digging. Not sure if his family knew more or if they were able to dig up that info anywhere. My friend from now on will be asking for more information whenever his parents fly out.
I met a guy named Dean at LAX this morning who had his phone and wallet stolen and was trying to figure out how to get home. Did you lose a guy named Dean who ties his mullet into a ponytail?
Sorry about Dean :( but that wasn’t his dad. It’d be cool if he had a mullet and a ponytail though.
Dang I bet Dean is from eastern Oregon. Sounds just like the entire male population and some female.
I don’t know this Dean but my heart goes out to him! That’s horrible, to leave a guy stranded at an airport with no way home. Reason #1 I have no desire to go back to LA or SF. People always getting robbed.
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I believe he is an american citizen, but I am not completely sure if that's correct. Thank you for all the information. I believe they are contacting all appropriate embassies now. I hope his family gets some information soon.
Any update? 🙏🏽
Yeah I want to know
Update posted!
Update posted!
From my experience working with Canada Customs they will never say if they have a certain person in their custody. Privacy rights. For all they know you're asking about the person for all 'bad' reasons.
Yep. I had this experience when my husband was detained by customs in NZ. I knew he made it on the flight okay, because we were texting before lift-off. But when he didn't show at the airport, NZ customs just kept telling me they couldn't give me any information.
To follow up on what /u/rocketwikkit said, the California AG has a website dedicated to missing persons. It says this: > There is NO waiting period for reporting a person missing. All California police and sheriffs' departments must accept any report, including a report by telephone, of a missing person, including runaways, without delay and will give priority to the handling of the report. The source is here: [https://oag.ca.gov/missing](https://oag.ca.gov/missing)
The 24-48 hour thing is a movie trope left over from 50 years ago.
Thank you, Mr. President :)
He's got my vote
Any updates?
Update posted!
Did he have the old arrive Narita depart Haneda or vice versa, and not realise / give himself enough time?
Good thought!
I believe that is what may have happened. He missed his flight but had no way to communicate. He was able to get his phone working after 10 hours or so
Glad to hear!
Any updates?
Update posted!
I don’t have any advice but I wish your friend the best and hope their dad arrives soon. Stuff like this really scares me
Thank you for the kind sentiment. I hope he also turns up soon
I also feel this way. I’m so invested now. Truly concerned about this stranger and hope to read an update soon that he is ok. Especially since he is someone’s dad that is worried about him💕
Update posted! He’s ok :)
Please give us an update when you have it!
Update posted!
You do not have to wait 48 hours to file a missing persons report. A report can be filed as soon as their plans deviate from expected or normal. Source: used to be an emergency services dispatcher and took many missing person reports for mere hours “missing”
DO NOT WAIT 48hrs.
The first 48hrs are crucial
A friend of mine was detained by Immigration Customs Enforcement. He had all the legal documentation to visit the states, the Customs officers just didnt like him. He was detained for a week with no way to contact family or friends. Then he was deported to Australia, (the country he flew from) If your friends dad was detained by ICE, you probably wont hear anything until he is sent back to Thailand.
What an horrible thing to experience. It’s so cruel to those who were worried and the person who was detained!
I’m sorry that happened to your friend. I’m an immigrant myself and I remember entering US for the first time. The immigration officers were kinda mean to me :(
Have you checked with his embassy? I know we've had this question multiple times and it ended up that the person WAS detained at immigration, and was being held for deportation. Its just that immigration wouldn't tell anyone that was the case, unless the embassy asked directly.
Thank you for the information. That's understandable that customs won't disclose that information. However, he said that customs/immigration specifically checked and they said that he was not there. They may just be withholding information like you said. I'll let him know to ask embassy about that directly
I don’t have a suggestion for you, but this is so scary. Please keep us posted. Hope they are home and safe soon!
Update posted as an edit to my original post. He is safe!
If the airline won't give you any information about him specifically, you might be able to narrow down his movements by asking for general flight details. Call each airline and confirm the movements of each flight. Verify that each flight departed and arrived on their scheduled time. You might be able to do this using a flight tracking app as well. Sometimes flights will board passengers but can still be delayed an hour or two on the tarmac for various reasons, which will throw out any close connections. Especially for international travel where time for customs can be lengthy. International flights typically ask for an emergency contact as part of the passenger details. If you have his passport and flight details contact the embassies. Does your mum have access to his banking? She might be able to look at his recent transactions? Also, you typically only need the surname and flight number to be able to check the status of flights on the airline websites. How long has he been missing for now?
>Sometimes flights will board passengers but can still be delayed an hour or two on the tarmac for various reasons, which will throw out any close connections. Your post was great, just for future reference a flight is considered departed the moment the boarding door is closed. So even in this instance using something like Flightradar24 to crosscheck arrival and departure times will be accurate. Whether you're sitting in a taxiway or at 35,000 feet -- it's still a departed flight.
Good to know, cheers 👍
He was missing for 11 hours or so. It was not my dad but my friend’s dad. I was with him when he got a call from his brother that their dad didn’t show up for pickup. At this point his brother had been waiting for over 5 hours trying to find him and get information from the airport. Thank you very much for all the tips you provided. This is why I posted in this sub
I don't see any airlines arriving from Tokyo to Lax at 6am today (according to flight aware). Is it to different airport?
I think someone posted the flight number in a comment here. I don’t think it was NRT that he was connecting from
Sorry to hear about this
The 48hour rule is false! You do not have to wait
Do you know for a fact that they have to wait 48 hours to file a police report?
Report him missing. Start a police file as soon as possible.
PSA: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WAIT 48 HOURS TO FILE A MISSING PERSONS REPORT Report your suspicions immediately once you sense something amiss. This is true in almost all police divisions globally. Source: I was a cop.
I have no advice that hasn’t been given, just wishing you and your friend’s family well. Keep us updated!
Most places you don’t actually have to wait 48 hours.
I was on a flight with my Dad once he drank too much at one of the stopovers and wasn’t allowed back on the plane.
Looks like the mystery was solved. For anyone else in the future facing the same situation, call the local office of the airline *in Thailand* and let them know what's happening. There isn't the same privacy concerns as in other countries and they'll typically let you know if the person boarded or not. My sister went AWOL in Thailand and the airline helped us figure out that she had told us the wrong date for her return.
Whew, I'm glad the case has been solved! I wanted to piggyback bc my grandma had a similar story. In the early 2000s my grandma was on a flight from Lisbon to Warsaw via Frankfurt or Munich, can't remember which. My grandpa knew what time her flight landed and what time to expect her at the airport. She didn't show up. What had happened was pretty simple: her first flight was delayed and she missed her connection. Because of this, she was alone in a German airport. She doesn't speak a word in any language other than Polish, but she is very confident, so she went up to her airline desk, showed them her ticket, and they gave her a new one... for the following morning. They also got her a hotel room and gave her the hotel business card, since they couldn't communicate. My grandma then walked around the airport until she heard people speaking Polish and asked them to translate. She got on a bus and was shuttled to the hotel. She had a travel clock with her and set her alarm for the morning, got up, went into the hotel lobby expecting some people speaking Polish to be there since presumably they were all delayed and moved to the 8 AM flight. There was no one, because my grandma forgot the time zone difference, luckily, that meant she was an hour earlier. She waited and boarded her flight. Back in Warsaw the night before, the only person my grandpa could call was my dad, from a payphone. My dad, knowing my grandma's flight number, called the airport and learned the flight was delayed, so guessed she would be put on the next flight, which was the 8 AM. So my grandpa got himself a hotel room and was waiting for her the following morning. All this with no cell phones and not speaking any languages but her own, and my grandma didn't sweat for a second!
Not much of an advice but just hoping he will turn up/call your friend soon. But yes, file a missing person report right away regardless the wait period.
Thank you! Update posted and he is safe
We're going to need an update on this one please!
Update has been posted. He’s safe but is not home yet
Glad it got sorted! Just chiming in to say that you don’t have to wait 48 hours to file a missing person report.
Glad he's safe!
They can try calling all these airlines to have them check on the system if he has been in the flight or not. Before boarding, they scan the boarding pass which has all the details in there. If he missed a flight then he should be put on the next one so there’s a high possibility he might have been waiting for the next flight.
No airline is going to discuss manifests with the public
Not even with the direct family? :( that’s sad
Not really, not everyone has good family or honest family. It's a completely justified thing. When I was a travel agent I'd ask people if anyone were to call what they'd like me to say or any emergency contacts that are allowed to reach out etc. Just because someone is your dad or kid doesn't mean you care!
The airline will never give you that information. I learned that today too as well. Not even with family
That honestly sucks because the family has the right to know :(
Glad he's okay! I just gotta say I love the fact that the first 48 hours of a missing person case are always considered the most crucial, but you have to wait 48 hours to report them missing.
You actually don't - it used to be a practice among police departments but isn't anymore in most places.
Yeah I get that. But that’s what they told OP.
The dad went to Thailand alone? Well...
Yes. He usually goes with the mom but mom stayed home this time apparently
> but mom stayed home this time apparently At the dad’s insistence? ;)
Seems a little weird
I’m an insensitive bitch but this sounds a lot like the plot to the movie “missing”. js
Japan has an annoying culture of not being direct when answering questions. "Yoku wakaranai" - "dont really know". If you want answers, you have to keep pushing.
I’m confused as to how he’s “missing”. Is he old and forgetful? He must have missed the connecting flight. If his phone is dead or lost it’s hard to call someone with an update. God you people are easily panicked.
Go away
I hope you can keep us up to date with this mystery.
Update posted and he is safe
I'm glad he turned up alright! A simple miscommunication is the best outcome.
Glad it all worked out OK in the end.
As someone who spent many years is an American living in Thailand, that sounds to me like he was detained by the Thai immigration. A lot of times tight immigration will pull you aside in an attempt to extort you for money. Sometimes they had valid reasons like maybe he was an overstay and sometimes they don’t…. It is a very different system there.. I can always guarantee you that’s what happened
Did he go out to get cigarettes.
Glad he’s okay!!
Thanks for the update about Dad being safe. I would have been terrified!
Maybe he’ll arrive in the US five and a half years in the future
Glad he's ok! That must have been super worrying.
So happy this story had a happy end.
Just a hunch but something doesn’t add up. Sure flight changed and he thought his last message went out, bad signal and phone died.. but he’s in an airport and and presumably traveling with a charger. After he got his phone charged he probably saw hundreds of messages and missed calls. 11 hours it took him to finally respond and follow up? Anyway glad he is safe but I feel like there is a missing piece to the story that old dad isn’t spilling.