Tokyo, January 06: A whistle caught in a hatch caused a passenger plane to return to Tokyo’s airport, the Japanese press agency Kyodo reported Wednesday.
An air hostess on a Continental Airlines flight to New York noticed something fluttering outside one of the plane’s doors on the Tuesday evening flight and the pilot then decided to return to Tokyo’s Narita airport four hours after takeoff, Kyodo cited Japanese transport ministry officials as saying.
The culprit turned out to be the neck strap of a whistle of the type used by runway staff to direct planes on the ground.
None of the 300 passengers on board the Boeing 777 were injured.
A government official called the incident an “exceptionally rare occurrence.”
–Agencies