A US-bound plane had to return to Tokyo after a drunk passenger bit a cabin attendant mid-flight, the Japanese carrier said Wednesday.
The passenger, reportedly a 55-year-old American man, sunk his teeth into a crew member’s arm while “heavily drunk”, an All Nippon Airways (ANA) spokesperson told AFP. The incident left the female attendant mildly injured.
The incident prompted pilots of the plane with 159 passengers on board to turn back over the Pacific to Haneda airport, where the man was handed over to police. Japanese broadcaster TBS quoted the passenger as telling investigators that he “doesn’t recall at all” his behaviour.
The incident left some social media users lamenting the litany of Japanese aviation woes so far this year — with four other incidents making headlines in less than a month. The most serious was a near-catastrophic collision at Haneda between a Japan Airlines aircraft and a smaller coast guard plane on January 2. All 379 people on board the JAL Airbus escaped just before the aircraft was engulfed in flames.
Five of the six people on the smaller aircraft, which was helping in a relief operation after a major earthquake in central Japan, died. Then on Tuesday, the wing tip of a Korean Air airliner struck an empty Cathay Pacific plane while taxiing at an airport in the northern island of Hokkaido.
Korean Air said the accident, which caused no injuries, happened after “the third-party ground handler vehicle slipped due to heavy snow.” A similar mishap took place on Sunday when an ANA aircraft came into “contact” with a Delta Air Lines plane at a Chicago airport, the Japanese airline told the French agency. Another ANA flight reportedly had to turn back on Saturday after a crack was discovered on the cockpit window of the Boeing 737-800.
(With agency inputs)
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