Japanese airliners 'clip wings', no injuries

The wing tips of two passenger jets "scratched" each other at a Japanese airport Thursday, an airport operator said, the latest in a string of aviation mishaps in the country.

Reports said no one was injured in the incident involving the two All Nippon Airways aircraft at Osaka's Itami airport for domestic flights.

"We've been told wing tips of two ANA planes scratched each other" shortly after 10:00 am (0100 GMT), a spokesman for Kansai Airports, which operates Itami, told AFP.

No passengers or crew were injured, local media said, just weeks after a spate of plane-related woes made headlines in Japan and abroad.

The most serious was a near-catastrophic collision at Haneda airport 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, but five of the six people on the smaller aircraft died.

Also in January, snowy conditions caused the wing tip of a Korean Air plane to strike an empty Cathay Pacific airliner while taxiing at an airport in Hokkaido.

Another ANA flight reportedly had to turn back after a crack was discovered on the cockpit window of the Boeing 737-800.

And a US-bound ANA plane had to return to Tokyo after an intoxicated passenger bit a cabin attendant mid-flight.