Travel mishap lands woman 900 miles from destination with no passport in new country

Well, the Gloucester County woman has a warning tonight as the busy summer travel season gets underway. She reached out to the Action News investigative team after a travel mishap landed her nearly 900 miles from her final destination. Investigative reporter, Chappadelli, looks into just how it happened. Beverly Ellis Hebbard is a self-described season traveler, getting back and forth from Philadelphia to her second home in Jacksonville, Florida. I picked Frontier flights because we flew so often. Ellis Hebbard says she arrived at the Frontier Airlines gate on November 6th and the gateboard read, PHL-DJAX. She asked an agent if she had enough time to run to the restroom.

You know, about 20 minutes. She says she returned a short time later, only to find the flight almost fully boarded and the jetway door about to close. It was then the gate agent questioned the size of her personal travel bag. I put it in and when I went to take it out, my arm right here got all scraped up. She says the gate agent then hurried her to board. I would say I took about 10 steps. She said, are you Beverly Ellis Hebbard? I said, you just had my boarding pass.

You just checked me in. Yes. Once in flight, reality set in. The flight attendant, tending to her wound, said she'll be able to relax. In Jamaica. I laughed. I said, oh, I would love to be going there, but I have a beach where I live.

And she said, look at me. This plane is going to Jamaica. Here's the problem. Ellis Hebbard didn't pack a passport since she was staying stateside. She says the flight crew told her the flight to Jacksonville had a gate change. You're entering a country without a passport. Ultimately, Jamaican authorities allowed Ellis Hebbard to remain in the jetway, considered US soil, and then returned to Philadelphia on a later flight.

When the investigative team contacted Frontier Airlines, they would only say the issue was addressed with airport personnel and offered Ellis Hebbard a $600 voucher and refunded her original ticket. But it should never have happened because I do not have a passport. The woman at the gate did not do her job. We reached out to the TSA, FAA and US Customs and Border Patrol. Bottom line, all agencies told us it's the airline's responsibility to match passenger boarding passes to the flight manifest. I'm investigator reporter Chad Pradele, Channel 6, Satchin News.

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