By Will Potter For Dailymail.Com and James Callery
16:28 17 Jan 2024, updated 17:53 17 Jan 2024
A top American sex addiction therapist accused of biting a flight attendant’s arm in a drunken rage has been pictured being perp-walked out of Japan’s Haneda Airport.
The spectacled suspect, named by Japanese outlet TBS News as 55-year-old Michael Travis Halyard, allegedly forced the flight to return to Tokyo on its route to Seattle on Tuesday night, and was promptly arrested after the ANA Airlines jet landed on the runway.
He reportedly told investigators that he took sleeping pills and ‘doesn’t recall at all’ his alleged antics on the flight, which left the hostess mildly injured.
According to his website, Halyard was named as one of America’s top mental health professionals in 2006, and specializes in sex addiction, mental health disorders, relationships and compulsive gambling.
The alleged biting incident is only the latest in a terrifying string of aviation disasters, which included two passenger jets colliding at a Japanese airport just a day before the biting incident.
The passenger’s alleged behavior came while he was ‘heavily drunk’, prompting the aircraft with 159-passengers to turn around over the Pacific Ocean.
ANA told MailOnline: ‘On January 16, NH118 departing from Tokyo Haneda to Seattle returned during the flight due to an intoxicated passenger who was acting in an unsafe manner to the flight crew and passengers.
‘Upon arrival at Haneda Airport, the passenger was turned over to the local police. There were no reported injuries among the passengers and the flight has been rescheduled to depart on January 17.’
The airline added: ‘The safety and security of our passengers and employees are ANA’s top priority and we will take all necessary actions to ensure it.’
The bizarre incident left some social media users likening it in mock horror to the ‘beginning of a zombie movie’.
It comes after several other aviation failures and near-disasters have rocked the industry in recent times, with two passenger jets colliding at New Chitose Airport on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido just hours before.
A Korean Airlines jet clipped a parked Cathawy Pacific Airways aircraft just as the Korean plane was preparing to take off.
There were 289 passengers on board the Korean Air plane during the incident, although thankfully no injuries were reported.
A more serious incident occurred at Haneda Airport two weeks prior, when a near-catastrophic collision occurred between a Japan Airlines aircraft and a smaller coast guard plane on January 2.
All 379 people on board the JAL Airbus escaped just before the aircraft was engulfed in flames.
Five of the six people on the smaller aircraft, which was helping in a relief operation after a major earthquake in central Japan, died.
It also comes as Boeing’s 737 MAX 9 aircraft, a workhorse for the aviation industry, has come under scrutiny in recent months.
Most notably, the plug door of new Alaska Airlines jet blew out at 16,000 feet on January 5 after being in service for only eight weeks.
Pilots flew the jet back to Portland, with only minor injuries among passengers.
A terrified passenger on board the near-catastrophic flight revealed the moment she texted her family ‘I don’t want to die’ after a door plug on the jet blew out.
Emma Vu took to TikTok after surviving the horror Alaska Airlines flight 1282.
‘In the moment I was so scared,’ Vu said, as she showed her panic-stricken texts to her family reading: ‘The masks r down; I am so scared right now; Please pray for me; Please I don’t want to die.’
In an interview with 7News Australia, she added: ‘I was more concerned with the plane dropping… I looked outside and it was going pretty smoothly. I think everyone freaking out inside made me freak out.’
Shocking footage from inside the plane saw fliers sat in eerie silence shortly after the door plug exploded, as they looked out of a gaping hole in the fuselage with the twinkling lights of Portland below.
Vu said she was asleep when the devastating safety failure erupted out of the blue and she ‘felt the entire plane drop’.
‘The masks dropped, and people are screaming,’ she continued, next to a tearful selfie she took in the moment that she feared could be her last.
She said: ‘I am so grateful for the ladies sat next to me… They were so sweet at calming me down, and the flight attendants were giving oxygen tanks to those who needed it more.
‘But I was freaking out because my bag wouldn’t inflate – and that’s literally what they tell you in the safety thing, like don’t worry you’re still getting air flow… When you’re in fight or flight you’re not thinking about that.
‘It was just so scary, no one knew what was happening. The pilot came on to tell everyone to put your mask on before you help others – literally word for word what they tell you in the safety training.’
Robert Johnson is a UK-based business writer specializing in finance and entrepreneurship. With an eye for market trends and a keen interest in the corporate world, he offers readers valuable insights into business developments.