In brief: Passengers wait 12 hours on tarmac

SAN FRANCISCO – Hundreds of air travelers landed in San Francisco, safe but irritated after a 28-hour overseas flight they say included 12 hours on a tarmac in the Middle East without food or accurate flight information.

Tempers grew short on Etihad Airways Flight 183 when fog in the city of Abu Dhabi delayed takeoff for a half-day, passengers told San Francisco broadcaster KGO.

“They kept telling us that we were going to leave, you know, 15 minutes from now, 20 minutes from now, 30 minutes for now, for 12 hours,” passenger Thomas Piani told reporters in San Francisco after finally landing in the city on Saturday evening.

Passengers said the flight crew told them the Abu Dhabi airport was too crowded with other stranded flights to allow them to get off the plane to wait.

Flight attendants eventually passed out sandwiches and water after some people made a fuss over the lack of food, passenger Ravali Reddy said.

“No one was angry about the delay itself. If it’s unsafe to fly, we don’t want to fly,” she said. “It just didn’t seem to make any logical sense why we had to stay on the plane.”

Etihad is a national airline of the United Arab Emirates. The airline apologized for travelers’ inconvenience but said the delays were beyond its control.

Single tuna fetches $37,500 at auction

TOKYO – A single bluefin tuna has sold for 4.5 million yen ($37,500) in annual celebratory bidding at the first auction of the year at Tokyo’s famous fish market.

Kiyoshi Kimura, the owner of a Japanese sushi restaurant chain, bought the 400-pound fish today at the re-opening of the Tsukiji market after the extended New Year’s break.

He was the top bidder for the fourth year in a row.

Hundreds of tuna are sold daily at the early morning auction.

The popularity of tuna for sushi and sashimi has depleted stocks globally. In November, the International Union for Conservation of Nature designated Pacific bluefin as a species threatened by extinction.