JAL 1975: meals held outside temperature control for 28 hours before service
| Date of record | 3 February 1975 |
|---|---|
| Location | Anchorage, Alaska to Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Type | Foodborne illness outbreak — aircraft |
| Source tier | Tier 1 — peer-reviewed medical literature (The Lancet) and contemporaneous investigation |
What the record shows
On 3 February 1975, 196 of 344 passengers and one cabin crew member aboard a Boeing 747 developed gastrointestinal illness after a ham omelette breakfast loaded at Anchorage. 142 passengers and the crew member were hospitalised on arrival in Copenhagen. It remains the largest documented foodborne illness event in aviation history.
Investigators traced contamination to staphylococcal lesions on a cook's hand. But contamination alone did not cause the outbreak. Published analysis records the food was held at room temperature for approximately 14 hours, then at 10°C for a further 14 and a half hours — roughly 28 hours outside proper temperature control. The meals sat in the kitchen around six hours before refrigeration, and were later placed in aircraft ovens rather than a chilled module for a further eight hours.
Contemporary analysis concluded that had the food been held correctly throughout, the outbreak would not have occurred. The flight crew were unaffected only because they had chosen steak rather than the breakfast service.
Evidence gap
The contamination event was identified. The temperature history that turned it into a mass casualty event was reconstructed retrospectively, by investigators, after 196 people were already ill. No contemporaneous record existed showing where the food was, at what temperature, and for how long.