The United Airlines plane traveled from Los Angeles via American Samoa to Sydney, but due to crossing the date line, the passengers did not have time to celebrate the turn of the year in Australia.
Los from Angeles Passengers on the plane bound for Sydney on Saturday will not be able to celebrate the change of the year at all due to the special time zone boundaries in the Pacific, says the newspaper The Guardian.
The flight crew noticed a possible oil leak in the engine, and the plane was diverted to Pago Pago Airport in American Samoa. The island nation of American Samoa is located in the South Pacific Ocean.
United Airlines, which operates the route, confirmed in a statement that the reason for the route change was a “mechanical problem”. The airline promised that a replacement flight would be arranged.
American Samoa is just east of the International Date Line. This means that the replacement flight from Sydney crossed the date line shortly after take off. So it flew from the morning of New Year’s Eve to the morning of New Year’s Day without being able to celebrate at midnight in between.
When traveling across the date line from east to west, the time calculation moves to the next day, while when traveling from west to east, it goes back to the previous day.
The replacement flight finally left Pago Pago on December 31st at 3am local time and is scheduled to arrive in Sydney on January 1st at 7:15am.
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