They Took a 14-Hour Flight, Got Nowhere

The flight took 14 hours as scheduled, but it ended up exactly where it started. All Nippon Airways Flight 223 departed Tokyo around 11am Tuesday bound for Germany, only to reverse course more than six hours in, while flying above the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska. The Boeing 787 then spent roughly eight hours heading back, landing at Tokyo's Haneda Airport around 1am Wednesday, Business Insider reports. The airline cited low engine oil levels as the reason for the diversion, saying it chose to return to its main hub for better access to maintenance resources. A diversion would've risked the aircraft being stuck at an airport without the proper technical support, per Aviation A2Z.

Back in Tokyo, a replacement aircraft and crew took off for Frankfurt around 7:30am Wednesday, putting passengers about 20 hours behind schedule. ANA apologized for the "extensive delay," stressing that safety comes first. Frustrated passengers should know the marathon "flight to nowhere," as Business Insider puts it, wasn't the worst to date. A 15-hour Qantas flight to Paris returned to Perth amid Middle East airspace closures in 2024, and a 16-hour Air New Zealand flight returned following an electrical fire at JFK in 2023, per Business Insider.