Staff Sgt. Bartek Bachleda spotted a fuel leak during take-off and possibly saved the lives of more than 300 airline passengers in route to Japan last week.
After alerting the aircrew, the ranking pilot made a decision to divert the flight to San Francisco.
The captain said they would have never made it to Japan if it wasn’t for the passenger’s insistence that an emergency situation was developing.
Photo: Staff Sgt Bachleda took this video image showing a fuel leak on a civilian aircraft on a flight from Chicago to Narita airport.
(Read the story in Japan Today)