I read in this morning’s paper that the crew from China to Guam (the former “detainees”) saw two sunrises as they flew from China to Guam. Since Guam is east (SE) of China, how is that possible? The article also mentioned that they saw two sunrises as they crossed the IDL, but what difference would the IDL make?
scratches head
Perhaps they took off at night, saw the sunrise soon before landing, then landed back into darkness, and saw the sun rise again?
IDL - - no idea
Yup. That’s what happened.
I saw the same thing while flying east (back to the US) from Melbourne, Aus., in August 1991.
Of course, due to the wonders of the International Date Line, I saw the sun rise three times in one day. 
Just to clarify:
So are we saying that, in flight, they saw the sun rise early b/c of their extreme altitude (horizon more distant than at sea level), descended to below where the sun was visible, then watched it rise over the horizon at sea level?
Well done toadspittle, no flies on you. I’ve been pondering this one for a few hours and figured it for a journalistic screw-up in barbitu8’s newspaper.
There’s no way, in a relatively short hop from China to Guam, that their plane could have flown through a sunrise, an entire day and night, to another sunrise.
But it is a long enough flight that they could have popped up from darkness into sunlight at 37000 feet or so and back down to Guam in time to catch another sunrise. A fluke requiring precise timing.