The family of a woman who vanished after missing her connecting flight out of LAX tells NBC4 they have reason to believe she may be in danger. Darsha Philips reports for the NBC4 News at 11 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 18, 2024.
Loved ones of Hannah Kobayashi are desperate to find her after they say the 30-year-old vanished from LAX.
“She boarded a plane on Nov 8th from Maui to LAX. She landed in LAX around 10 p.m. to make a connecting flight to New York City,” Laire Pidgeon, Kobayashi’s aunt said.
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Kobayashi was seen de-boarding an American Airlines flight from Maui to LAX, but she never made that connecting flight to New York, according to her family.
“We were in communication with her when she let us know she did not make that flight,” Pigeon said.
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Her family says Kobayashi spent the night in the airport Friday to Saturday, and Saturday to Sunday, trying to get a standby flight to New York.
Her family says Kobayashi left LAX both days to explore the city. They discovered she went to the Grove on Sunday.
The last phone call the family says they received from Kobayashi was on Sunday when she made it back to LAX.
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Then later that evening her family says loved ones began to receive strange texts from Kobayashi.
“Messages saying she did not feel safe. She was worried about people stealing her money, it was after that those strange messages she went dark,” Pidgeon said.
Calls to her phone went straight to voicemail, and the family says no one has seen or heard from Kobayashi since.
“I just need everyone to know that this is not in her character,” Pidgeon said.
Loved ones say Kobayashi was excited to go to New York and had spent thousands of dollars on a hotel and concert tickets.
“She would never do this to her family. she would never make us worry like this,” Pigeon said.
Family members most recently stated that they had obtained surveillance footage that captured Kobayashi in the area of the downtown Metro train station near Crypto.com Arena, although it was unclear exactly when that footage was taken. The family indicated that based on the footage, “it is evident that Hannah does not appear to be in good condition and she is not alone.”
Relatives have traveled to Los Angeles to search for her, focusing their efforts on the airport area. They have also established a GoFundMe page to help raise funds for the search.
