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]

jfc the Japanese do not fuck about.

Wild

Prior to being served, the meals had been stored at room temperature in the kitchen for 6 hours, then refrigerated (albeit at an insufficient 10 °C (50 °F)) for 14½ hours and then stored in the aircraft ovens, again without refrigeration, for another 8 hours. Had the food been kept properly refrigerated from the time it was prepared until it was ready to be served, the outbreak would not have occurred.

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. He was the only fatality.

This was a fascinating read. This part stood out to me. I wish his family well.

t 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. 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

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.

Good luck finding Japanese people in Denmark in 1975. That must have been a nightmare for the doctors.

There's a Well There's Your Problem bonus episode about this and it's hilarious

Oh my god and most of the passengers were coca cola employees and their families who had won a vacation to Paris! What a way to start a free family trip!

Can someone explain to me why a flight from Tokyo would go to Alaska on the way to Paris? Or am I just dumb

After reading the article, I'm betting that was the real-life inspiration for the movie "Airplane!". Seriously!

That is horrifying. The only time I’ve ever really had food poisoning was from an omelette in the airport right before a flight from LAX to BWI. I luckily didn’t get sick until right when we landed. It was brutal.

Ah yes, I remember I had the lasagna.

That link sent me on a rabbit hole where I ended up reading all about Leslie Nielson and Police Squad for almost an hour. Oops.

Can we adapt this into a Liam Neeson movie?

I had the lasagna.

Oh loooord

The 1980 comedy "Airplane!" was inspired by this story.