A Connecticut family were thrilled and disbelieving on Tuesday night after their passports and $1,300 in cash were returned to them unscathed ? after travelling from Bermuda through three different airports and two different countries.

The passports and 13 $100 bills, left on board the plane by mistake, travelled from Bermuda on Tuesday lunchtime to New York?s La Guardia airport on US Airways flight 1015.

From La Guardia, the passports and money travelled to Philadelphia, and then from Philadelphia back to Bermuda on what was then US Airways flight 386. Back in Bermuda they were discovered by cleaners on the plane late that night.

When the passports were found at about 10.15 p.m. it was unknown that there was any cash with them. ?We assumed they belonged to a passenger off that flight who would?ve been in the Immigration hall,? airport duty officer Pam Brockington said. ?So we informed US Air and they sent an agent out to get it.?

The duty officer thought no more of it, until about 20 minutes later, when she received a phone call from a very distraught woman named Michelle Homulik in Connecticut. Mrs. Homulik told Ms Brockington she had left her passports on US Airways flight 1015 earlier that day when she travelled from Bermuda to La Guardia.

Ms Homulik and her daughter, Jacqueline, were on their second trip to Bermuda this summer when they left the Island last Tuesday. The family has been travelling to Bermuda regularly for ten years.

It was when Mrs. Homulik was going through her carry-on bag in Connecticut on Tuesday evening that she realised she no longer had her case containing the passports. The last time she remembered having the passports was as she was boarding the plane.

Though she at first called US Air in the US, she was eventually told several times that her passports ? if found ? would be sent to a warehouse, and from there to her. She would have no way of knowing whether or not they had been found unless she received them in the mail.

Frustrated but unwilling to give up hope, she finally logged on to the Internet and found the website for the Bermuda International Airport ? including the number for the director of airport operations.

As director Jim Howes was off the Island, the call to his number was forwarded to the home of acting director Mike Osborn. Mr. Osborn, asleep when Mrs. Homulik called, gave her the number of the duty officers at the airport.

?There, I got through to Pam,? Mrs. Homulik said.

?She was so sympathetic, she was just so kind. She was the first person who actually cared about what had happened.?

Ms Brockington explained that, as it was so late at night, she would have to check with security the next day, and after taking Mrs. Homuliks particulars, she hung up the phone.

Then, something clicked. ?I don?t even know why I put two and two together,? she said. Going to the US Air agents, she asked if they still had the passports found on the flight earlier in the evening. Yes, the agents replied, adding there was no need to worry, and that the passports had not belonged to anyone on board that flight from Philadelphia.

Hardly daring to believe, Ms Brockington asked if the passport was in the name of ?Homulik?. When the surprised agents replied yes, she immediately called Mrs. Homulik back.

Verifying the passports, Mrs. Homulik asked if a white envelope was with them. The envelope, she said, would contain roughly $1,800 in cash.

Ms Brockington immediately called a US Air agent over to witness as she searched through a white envelope. The envelope did contain wads of cash ? but, Ms Brockington said in dismay, only $1,300.

The news was greeted with delight, however ? Mrs. Homulik had been mistaken in how much cash was in the envelope. All the cash was there, despite having travelled through three different airports in two countries. ?I said, ?Michelle, I still would?ve been crying?,? Ms Brockington said. ?She said, ?I only stopped half an hour ago.??

?I was so thrilled, I couldn?t believe it,? Mrs. Homulik said. ?I?m so thankful.?

The next day, Ms Brockington added, US Air Fed-Exed the package to the Homuliks. ?It was the simplest way.?

?Later that afternoon I got another call from Pam to make sure everything had gone ok,? Mrs. Homulik said, sounding surprised. ?I was so impressed, I couldn?t get over the fact ? just the care she showed ? it was very, very nice.?

Mrs. Homulik received the passports via Fed Ex on Thursday morning. She wrote a Letter to the Editor which was emailed to this newspaper, and is in the process of sending Ms Brockington a thank you.

The Homuliks, who stay at the Southampton Princess every year (sometimes twice a year) have already booked their stay on the Island for next year, she added.