Qantas flight diverted to Tahiti after passenger allegedly bites crew member

Somewhere over the Pacific, the fragile social contract that makes mass air travel possible was broken when a passenger, apparently intoxicated and untethered from his surroundings, bit a crew member aboard a Qantas flight from Melbourne to Dallas. The aircraft diverted to Tahiti, where authorities removed the man and restored order — a reminder that the cabin, for all its mundane routine, is a pressurized vessel of shared vulnerability with no exit. The incident cost hundreds of travelers hours of their journey, and a crew member their sense of safety, because one person could not hold himsel