Japanese plane turns back after drunk passenger bites flight attendant

A spokesman for All Nippon Airways said on January 17 that an American passenger, about 55 years old, was "very drunk" and bit the flight attendant's hand on flight NH 118, causing her minor injuries.

The incident prompted the pilot to turn the plane, carrying 159 people, back to Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Japan, where the man was handed over to police. Japanese media reported that the man claimed to have "no memory of his actions."

Some social media users likened the incident to “the beginning of a zombie movie.” Others pointed out that Japan’s aviation industry has suffered four incidents in less than three weeks this year.

The most serious of these was a collision between a Japan Airlines Airbus A350 and a Japan Coast Guard patrol plane. The accident killed five of the six people on board the patrol plane and caused the Airbus A350 to burn.

On January 14, an All Nippon Airways plane collided with a Delta Air Lines plane at Chicago airport in the US. There were no injuries in the incident. The day before, a Boeing 737-800 of the same airline had to return to the airport after cracks were discovered in the cockpit window.

Two days later, a Korean Air plane clipped a Cathay Pacific plane while taxiing on the runway at an airport on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. Korean Air said the accident was caused by “third-party ground equipment slipping due to heavy snow” and that there were no injuries.