TOKYO - A Japanese airline pilot nodded off twice while at the controls of a domestic flight last month - in front of a transport official who happened to be on board for a routine inspection.

The 50-year-old All Nippon Airlines pilot has been grounded pending an internal probe ordered by industry regulators, company spokesman Kunio Shibata said Friday.

Shibata said the 80 passengers on the flight from Tokyo to the southwestern city of Ube were never in danger because the Boeing 767-300 was flying on autopilot at the time of the March 23 incident.

He called it "extremely regrettable" and said Japan's second-largest airline was redoubling efforts to ensure safety.

According to the airline, the pilot started to doze off after the aircraft had reached its cruising altitude and the autopilot had been engaged. He roused after an official from the Transport Ministry on board for a routine inspection noticed and tapped the co-pilot on the shoulder.

The pilot, whose name has not been released, nodded off again a few minutes later, prompting the co-pilot to yell at him.

The airline is conducting an investigation into the incident ordered by the ministry to determine whether the pilot was negligent or is suffering from a sleeping disorder, Shibata said.

Chuck-A-Rama apologizes for cutting low-carb couple off beef at buffet

Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY - Chuck-A-Rama says it's still not an all-you-can-eat establishment, but the restaurant chain is serving up an apology to a low-carb couple cut off from eating beef after making one too many trips to the buffet.

Chuck-A-Rama officials made the public apology Thursday to Isabelle Leota, 29, and her husband, Sui Amaama, 26, who had dined at a Chuck-A-Rama in suburban Taylorsville April 20.

The eatery's general manager told Amaama he was cut off from the roast beef when he went up for his 12th slice. When the couple refused to leave until they got their money back, the manager called police and had them escorted out.

Leota said they were on the low-carb Atkins Diet and ate at that location at least twice a week because of its convenience.

The West Valley City couple said they had been embarrassed and treated unfairly, and argued that the buffet was all-you-can-eat.

Despite the apology, Moss reiterated that buffet-style means self-service, not all-you-can-eat. He added the company is "in the process of defining a system by which we can communicate this difference to our customers so our buffet-style dining is better understood."

Corporate management had been scheduled to meet Thursday night with the couple and their attorney, but they did not show up, a spokesman said. The company planned to try to get in touch with them Friday.

The couple didn't return calls seeking comment Thursday.

The company has offered the couple a gift certificate, though its amount was not immediately known.

"I'd like to be able to shake hands with them, invite them to come back as a great customer and hopefully we can move on with life," chief executive Duane Moss said.

New portrait shows bare-chested Prince Philip

Associated Press

LONDON -- A new portrait of Queen Elizabeth II's husband, Prince Philip, depicts him bare-chested with a bug on his shoulder and a plant growing out of his finger.

The prince, 82, sat for prize-winning painter Stuart Pearson Wright four times, with his shirt on. A model posed for the chest part of the painting, which depicts the upper half of the prince's torso, Pearson Wright said while unveiling the painting Thursday.

Pearson Wright said the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, which commissioned the work, rejected it, so he gave them a different version that only showed Philip's head.

The artist said the blue fly, known as a bluebottle, which he placed on Philip's shoulder, was meant to emphasize the prince's mortality, because it feeds on decaying organic matter and is sometimes used as a reminder of death.

"It's a motif that's been used throughout history," he said.

In the painting, Philip points up with his right index finger, which sprouts four strands of cress. Pearson Wright said they symbolize the prince's four children.

The Abbott and Holder art gallery in London is selling the work, titled "Homo sapiens, Lepidium sativum and Calliphora vomitoria," the scientific names for human, cress and bluebottle, for $45,000.

Pearson Wright has said that when Prince Philip saw the painting in its early stages he exclaimed, "Gadzooks! As long as I don't have to have it on my wall."

Buckingham Palace said Thursday that Phililp has had many portraits painted of him over the years and had not offered an opinion on this one.