Alaska’s role in the most stomach-churning food poisoning incident in aviation history

Part of a continuing weekly series on Alaska history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage or Alaska history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story.

Like the aftermath of a battle, the bodies were scattered, strewn about an upscale Copenhagen, Denmark, airport lounge. Stretchers lay here and there, some filled with warm bodies while others were ominously empty. The atmosphere was a mix of weak moans and the stench of diarrhea. Loved ones, friends and even strangers comforted each other, unified by disaster. Overwhelmed doctors and staffers circled, hindered by a language barrier and inability to ease their pain. The afflicted were the passengers of the 747 flight that briefly stopped in Alaska on its way to Europe. Anchorage had poisoned them — more specifically, one especially foul Anchorage cook.

In late 1974, Coca-Cola informed some of their Japanese branch salesmen that they and their families had won a trip to Paris for the following year. On or around Jan. 31, 1975, an International Inflight Catering cook showed up to work in Anchorage with two lesions — staph infections — on his right hand. International Inflight Catering was partially owned by Japan Airlines, aka JAL, and provided meals for their flights. The cook covered his lesions with bandages but did not inform his supervisors. Nor did his employers confirm his health status before allowing him to work with food.

That unidentified cook began frying ham for omelets, which were stored for the future. If someone had eaten those omelets immediately, they would have likely experienced little to no ill effects. However, those same omelets sat in Anchorage for roughly three days. During that time, they were left at room temperature for 14 hours. They sat in a refrigerator set to 50 degrees, still too warm, for another 14 1/2 hours.

On Feb. 2, a JAL flight from Tokyo stopped in Anchorage on its way to Paris. The prize-winning Coca-Cola salesmen and their wives constituted the bulk of the 344 passengers on the chartered Boeing 747. At that time, the omelets from three days prior were loaded onto the jet, where they sat at room temperature for another eight hours. On the morning of Feb. 3, about an hour and a half from their next stop at Copenhagen, the flight attendants served breakfast to the passengers and crew.

Of the 364 men and women aboard, 228 people, including the entire first-class section, ate omelets with ham prepped by the Anchorage cook. While he worked, the cook contaminated the ham with bacteria from his lesions, specifically Staphylococcus aureus. Over three days, the bacteria multiplied, producing a heat-resistant toxin that survived when the flight attendants warmed the omelets.

Around an hour later, the first passengers began to complain of nausea and cramps. The vomiting and diarrhea followed soon after. One flight attendant, the only crew member to get sick, fainted as she left the plane upon landing. Within three hours, more than half the passengers were ill. Ultimately, 196 passengers and the flight attendant contracted food poisoning. Copenhagen airport officials quickly opened a lounge for their exclusive use, but none of the doctors spoke Japanese. Workers at nearby Japanese restaurants were quickly summoned to assist as translators.

Of those 197 people, 143 were hospitalized. Everyone afflicted recovered, though they all endured notably severe symptoms. One passenger was partially, if temporarily, paralyzed, briefly losing his ability to understand or express speech. As a subsequent study in The Lancet noted, “Fever and bloody stools were recorded with unusual frequency.”

JAL staffers provided the healthy passengers — everyone who had not eaten the tainted ham omelets — vouchers for food at the airport. Somehow, most of them declined. While the meals were offered with the best of intentions, the unaffected passengers had by that time seen many of their colleagues covered in vomit and were not yet interested in another meal. They instead took a bus tour of the city. After some time, the travelers who didn’t eat the omelets and the sick passengers who were not hospitalized were allowed to continue the trip to Paris. On their way back to Japan, epidemiologists asked the passengers to sit in the same seat locations, the better to isolate the origin and spread of the food poisoning.

By sheer luck, the pilots did not eat the tainted ham, avoiding what could have been a far more dire situation. Doctor and author Lawrence Altman claimed the pilots were accustomed to Alaska and thus not interested in breakfast served in a European time zone. JAL would subsequently mandate that pilots eat different meals, which many airlines require today.

The idea of a flight crew incapacitated by food poisoning might remind some of the 1980 comedy “Airplane!,” but the JAL flight was not a direct inspiration. There had been several food poisoning incidents in airline history before the 1975 JAL flight, though none nearly as severe. More pointedly, “Airplane!” drew heavily from the 1957 film “Zero Hour!,” which also featured pilots struck with food poisoning.

A multinational group of researchers investigated the case and quickly tracked the cause back to Anchorage. Alaska epidemiologist Mackey Eisenberg was part of the team. He said, “This is the first time this thing has happened on a jumbo jet although similar things have happened on smaller planes in the past.” He continued, “It’s one of those nightmares, you know it’s bound to happen someday ... and now it has.” Like a mother lecturing a particularly dense child, a different Lancet study gave the most obvious advice: “This outbreak re-emphasises that people with infected lesions should not handle food and that foods must be stored at temperatures low enough to inhibit the growth of bacteria.”

Though none of the passengers and crew aboard the flight died, there was one fatality linked to the episode. One week after the flight, Kenji Kuwabara committed suicide in his Anchorage apartment. After 25 years with JAL, Kuwabara joined the Hawaii-based catering company that provided the fateful meals. In 1974, he moved to Anchorage and established the company’s Alaska branch. A friend told the Daily News, “He was an extremely pleasant, personable man who was always very conscientious about his job. He was also an avid sportsman who enjoyed hunting and fishing and seemed to like Alaska very much.”

[It’s a bird! It’s a fish? Alaska’s history of collisions between planes and animals.]

For Japan Airlines and Anchorage, 1975 was a trying year. On Dec. 16, a JAL 747 carrying radioactive medical isotopes slid off the east-west taxiway at the Anchorage International Airport, down a slope and into a ditch. Everyone lived, but a pilot and passenger were severely injured. The containers holding the radioactive materials were not breached. Heavy winds and an icy taxiway contributed to the accident, but quick thinking by the pilot to shut down the engines may have prevented a fire or explosion.

Due to its awkward location and mangled status, the jet’s carcass sat in that ditch for more than two months before it could be removed. Jack Frost for radio station KBYR asked listeners to suggest some solutions. The best answer was probably for politicians to fill hot air balloons that would lift the plane out of its situation. But the winning answer brought it all back to food, to turn the wreck into a McDonald’s.

Key sources:

“140 Japanese Tourists Are Ill After Meal on Jet Over Europe.” New York Times, February 4, 1975, 3.

Altman, Lawrence K. “Illness on Japanese Jet is Traced to Alaskan Cook.” New York Times, February 7, 1975, 3.

Bartimus, Tad. “Caterer’s Death Under Investigation.” Anchorage Daily News, February 11, 1975, 2.

Effersøe, Poul, and Kaj Kjerulf. “Clinical Aspects of Outbreak of Staphylococcal Food Poisoning During Air Travel.” The Lancet 306, no. 7935 (1975): 599-600.

Eisenberg, Mickey S., Knud Gaarslev, William Brown, Marcus Jorwitz, and Dianne Hill. “Staphylococcal Food Poisoning Aboard a Commercial Aircraft.” The Lancet 306, no. 7935 (1975): 595-599.

Jones, Sally W. “Flight Crew Credited After JAL Mishap.” Anchorage Daily News, December 18, 1975, 2.

“Jumbo in Tow.” Anchorage Daily News, February 27, 1976, 2.

Nussbaum, Paul. “Officials Urge Stricter Food Precautions.” Anchorage Daily Times, October 15, 1975, 2.

Randles, Slim. “Flight Passengers Stricken.” Anchorage Daily News, February 4, 1975, 2.