32 Missing Chinese Students Are Safe, Remain in the U.S.

All 32 Chinese students who mysteriously vanished from Los Angeles International Airport were believed safe Tuesday, having embarked on the second leg of a visit to the United States.

Heading off a budding international incident, Los Angeles police announced that they had located 25 of the students who disappeared Monday and believe that the other seven also are safe.

“There was apparently some problem or some conflict” between two language schools, said LAPD Cmdr. David J. Kalish. He described the airport changeover from one language school to another educational program that started it all as “rather bizarre.”

The disappearance drama began midday Monday when the students, ranging in age from 14 to 17, arrived at the airport shortly before they were scheduled to board a jetliner for Shanghai.

They had spent February living with American host families in Redlands and studying English through a program sponsored by ELS Language Centers that was located at the University of Redlands.

The Chinese students boarded a bus Monday morning, saying goodbye to the host families, and headed for the airport, leaving people in Redlands believing that they were on their way home.

But instead of boarding the plane, the teenagers were whisked away in a caravan of vans operated by a language school.

With the media in hot pursuit, the story Tuesday jumped from Redlands, where school officials said they didn’t have a clue, to Covina, where police questioned two students, to Cal State Northridge, where the Chinese consul general met with reporters, and finally to the LAPD’s Parker Center, where Kalish pronounced the students safe.

Kalish said the students were with a new set of host families but declined to say where. Police did not identify the second language school.

Apparently some employees of ELS had arranged a second study session with a rival firm unbeknown to ELS management.

In Covina, LAPD Deputy Chief Rick Dinse spoke to reporters after talking with two girls reported missing earlier. He pronounced everything in order, saying that the students’ six-month visas would not expire for five more months.

As for the airport switch, Dinse said, “It appears this was a preplanned event.” He said two counselors on the bus, which was to drop the students off at LAX, knew of the planned switch. He said the students’ parents had approved the extended stay.

But if the counselors knew, many others were left in the dark.

David Luebbe, a 41-year-old census worker who hosted two 17-year-old girls at his Redlands home, said he and other hosts wished the students a good flight home Monday morning, discussed such things as clothing that relatives could spot in the Shanghai airport, and never once got a suggestion that the students were remaining in California.

“Our two girls said they were getting homesick and were ready to go home,” said Luebbe, who like other hosts received a stipend from ELS for boarding the students.

Apparently the students’ parents were aware of the organized vanishing act because none were at the airport in Shanghai to meet the flight the students were scheduled to be on.

The problem was that they had failed to notify authorities. Before the students were located, the FBI, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Chinese Embassy and consular staffs on both sides of the Pacific were called in to look for the group.

And the ruse may have backfired on some families because once news reports about the missing students began circulating, Chinese Consul General Wenbin An in Los Angeles said his office began getting anxious calls from parents and relatives living in Shanghai.

An, speaking to reporters at Cal State Northridge, where he had just given a talk on U.S.-China relations, said he knew very little about the case.

The firm that sponsored the 30-day study course, ELS, is a subsidiary of Berlitz International. Company spokeswoman Judy Judd-Price said, “We are happy that the children are safe and sound and enjoying the new program.”

Said the LAPD’s Kalish:

“This has truly been a bizarre incident. But it appears at this time it will have a happy ending.”

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Contributing to this story were staff writers Tom Gorman in Redlands, Joe Mozingo in Covina, Caitlin Liu in Northridge, Michael Luo in Los Angeles and Maggie Farley in Shanghai.