According to LAX Airport Police, officers had a unit and supervisors on scene when the plane, flight ANA 175, arrived back in Los Angeles.
Police said the return of the Tokyo-bound flight was due to a "mix up and was straightened up."
The airline, All Nippon Airways, issued an apology early Wednesday for the inconvenience. They said they were investigating how the passenger boarded the wrong flight.
The statement read: During the flight, the cabin crew became aware that one of the passengers boarded the incorrect flight and notified the pilot. As part of the airline's security procedure, the pilot in command decided to return to the originating airport, where the passenger was disembarked. ANA is researching the situation currently to determine how the passenger boarded the flight. ANA would like to express its apologies to the passengers for the inconvenience. We take great pride providing exemplary customer service, and on this flight we failed to do so.
The flight was re-boarded overnight and was on its way to Tokyo Wednesday morning.
Model Chrissy Teigen, who was aboard the flight with her husband John Legend, tweeted that she had been on the plane for four hours when it turned around midair.
"A flying first for me: 4 hours into an 11 hour flight and we are turning around because we have a passenger who isn't supposed to be on this plane. Why...why do we all gotta go back, I do not know," Teigen said in a tweet.
a flying first for me: 4 hours into an 11 hour flight and we are turning around because we have a passenger who isn’t supposed to be on this plane. Why...why do we all gotta go back, I do not know
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) December 27, 2017
Teigen went on to tweet that she was unsure of exactly what had taken place on the flight that caused the plane to turn around. "This person must be mortified though," Teigen tweeted.
So many questions and I have no answers. Either do they. This person must be mortified though
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) December 27, 2017
According to Teigen, passengers were told that the person in question had a ticket on an entirely different airline.
They keep saying the person had a United ticket. We are on ANA. So basically the boarding pass scanner is just a beedoop machine that makes beedoop noises that register to nowhere
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) December 27, 2017
Teigen said passengers were held on the plane for at least 20 minutes after it landed for police to conduct interviews with passengers.
Police were interviewing all the people seated around the mystery person once we got off the plane. Why would they do this! I MUST KNOW MORE
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) December 27, 2017
Meanwhile, another passenger snapped a photo with Teigen and Legend, who seemed to be taking it all in stride.
My first tweet can’t be more epic than this: just survived an 8-hour LAX-LAX flight with @chrissyteigen and @johnlegend on #ANA #NH175 pic.twitter.com/yY0vIqfcja
— Raffy (@Raffywu) December 27, 2017
The plane took off from LAX at 11:36 a.m. Tuesday and landed back at LAX at 7:33 p.m. The flight's total duration was recorded at seven hours and 56 minutes.