A Japanese airline was forced to conduct an emergency flight last week to reduce excess weight on two of its planes carrying a group of sumo wrestlers to a competition.
“Due to the weight restrictions on this aircraft, it is extremely unusual for us to operate special flights,” a Japan Airlines spokesman told the regional newspaper Minami-Nippon Shimbun, The Guardian reported on Monday.
Last week, the airline had to organize an emergency flight to transfer nearly 30 sumo wrestlers from two other Boeing 737-800 planes flying from Osaka and Tokyo after it discovered the passengers exceeded weight limits, British media reported.
These are usually determined based on the amount of fuel each aircraft can carry.
However, the unusual passengers, whose average weight was estimated at 120 kg, were well above the typical average passenger weight of 70 kg, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun.
In order to board the flight specially organized for them, the 14 wrestlers had to take another flight from Itami Airport in Osaka to join their 13 friends at Haneda Airport in Tokyo and finally take off towards the island of Amami Oshima, where the sports festival is taking place took place until Sunday.
Although there is no minimum weight to become a sumo wrestler, the record for heaviest weight is held by a retired wrestler of Russian origin named Ōrora in 2018, who weighed 292.6 kg at his peak, The Guardian reported.