Not all flights go as planned, and sometimes issues arise, necessitating a diversion. Once in a while we’ll see a “flight to nowhere,” whereby a plane has to return to its origin. However, this has to be one of the most extreme versions of this that I’ve seen.
This flight ordinarily takes around 13-14 hours, and it doesn’t necessarily take the route that you’d expect. Since ANA doesn’t use Russian airspace, instead of operating westbound, this flight actually operates eastbound.
For example, below is what the typical flight path looks like for this ANA service from Tokyo to Frankfurt, which goes out over the Pacific, and then flies over Alaska, the Arctic Ocean, and Greenland, prior to reaching continental Europe.
On this particular day, the plane took off from Tokyo at 10:55AM local time, just 15 minutes after the scheduled departure time. The plane flew as expected for a little over six hours, having passed over Alaska, and then flying out over the Beaufort Sea (an extension of the Arctic Ocean).
However, at that point the crew made the decision to return to Tokyo due to a mechanical issue (more on that in a bit). In the opposite direction of travel, the winds were much stronger, so the journey back took around eight hours. In the end, the plane touched down back in Tokyo at 12:59AM this morning (Wednesday, February 18, 2026), 14hr4min after it departed.
So that means the flight actually ended up taking longer than usual, but rather than passengers ending up at their destination, they ended up exactly where they started.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.
