Japan Air Lines food poisoning incident

The incident occurred aboard a Boeing 747 operated by Japan Air Lines. The registration number of the aircraft is not known. At the time of the incident, Japan Air Lines had both the 747-100 and the 747-200B in their long-distance fleet.[1]

The aircraft was carrying 344 passengers. The exact number of crew members is not known, but the fact that 364 meals were taken on board indicates a crew of 20. Most of the passengers on the charter flight were Japanese salesmen of The Coca-Cola Company and their family members, who had won a trip to Paris.[2]

The flight originated from Tokyo Haneda Airport and made a fuel stop at Anchorage International Airport. After crossing the Arctic, another fuel stop at Copenhagen Airport was scheduled before the flight was to continue to its final destination at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

The aircraft reached European airspace after an uneventful flight. 90 minutes prior to the scheduled landing at Copenhagen, the flight attendants served ham omelettes for breakfast.

About one hour after breakfast, while approaching Copenhagen, 196 passengers and one flight attendant fell ill with nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal cramps. 144 of them were so severely ill that they required hospitalization, 30 were in critical condition. The other 53 were treated in makeshift emergency rooms.

As none of the doctors in Denmark spoke Japanese, and only few of the passengers were fluent in Danish or English, Japanese-speaking staff from Copenhagen restaurants were summoned to the hospital to act as translators.[2][3]

The investigation team was led by United States Public Health Service officer Dr. Mickey S. Eisenberg of the Alaska State Health Department.

Laboratory tests of stool and vomit samples from passengers, as well as 33 samples of leftover ham omelettes, detected Staphylococcus aureus.[2][4] Elevated concentrations of toxins produced by the staphylococci were also detected in the ham, explaining the extremely short incubation time.[3][4]

Japan Air Lines' catering manager, 52-year-old Kenji Kuwabara, committed suicide upon learning that the incident had been caused by one of his cooks.[3][7] He was the only fatality.[3]

Investigators emphasized that people with infected lesions should not handle food and that food should be stored at temperatures low enough to inhibit the growth of bacteria.[4]

It was just chance that the pilot and first officer had not eaten any of the contaminated omelettes, as the airline had no regulations regarding crew meals.[6] As the pilots' biological clocks were on Alaska time rather than European time, they had opted for a dinner of steaks instead of omelettes—had they not done so, they might not have been capable of landing the aircraft safely.[3] Eisenberg suggested that cockpit crew members eat different meals prepared by different cooks to prevent food poisoning outbreaks from incapacitating the entire crew,[4] a rule subsequently implemented by many airlines.[8]

• Aerolíneas Argentinas Flight 386, a 1992 incident in which dozens of passengers contracted cholera through their meals, killing one.
• Flight into Danger, a 1956 Canadian telefilm with a similar theme. The telefilm was later remade as the 1957 motion picture Zero Hour!, and later the 1980 comedy Airplane!, which shared the same plot and much of the same dialogue.