SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- Police in the San Francisco Bay Area continued searching Saturday for a 12-year-old Chinese girl who disappeared from her tour group while on a trip to space camp in Alabama.
Yukun Jia was last seen Thursday at San Francisco International Airport, and police were not sure if she had simply gotten lost or if she had somehow defected or been kidnapped.
"We don't know if she's missing, if she ran away, or if something happened to her," San Francisco Police Sgt. Larry Ratti told reporters. "We just don't know."
San Francisco television KPIX said Saturday police were reviewing airport security surveillance videotapes to see if there were any images of Jia leaving the area.
The girl was part of a group of around 30 students that had flown in from Beijing while on the way to Huntsville, Ala., for a weeklong stay at Space Camp. The popular camp immerses children in educational programs geared toward space exploration and science.
The Beijing group had a 1-day layover in San Francisco on Thursday and went immediately by bus from the airport to tour nearby Stanford University. Leaders of the group discovered Jia was missing when they took a head count on the bus three hours after they departed the airport.
Ratti said Jia had asked to use the restroom once the group cleared Customs at the airport, but was told by one of the chaperones to get on the bus instead. She was not seen after that.
Police said they searched the airport several times with the help of tracking dogs and found no trace of Jia, who was described as 5-foot-7, 110 pounds, with short black hair and very limited English skills. She was dressed in a yellow T-shirt with the words "Space Camp" printed in English and Chinese.
The Bay Area is home to a large Chinese population and the girl's luggage apparently was never placed on the group's tour bus, however police said there was no indication Jia had relatives or friends in the area who might have spirited her out of airport with the intention of keeping her in the United States.
