The Diversion

A Texas-bound flight was diverted to Tahiti.

To understand why, you need to know that a passenger was drunk, and that the drunk passenger bit a cabin crew member, and that the pilot's assessment of this information was: Tahiti.

Tahiti is in French Polynesia. People spend months planning trips to Tahiti. They save money. They arrange it around work. They tell people where they are going. The passenger on this flight bit someone and arrived in Tahiti in roughly the same way someone accidentally wires money to a different country. Unintentionally. With significant consequences.

The other passengers on this flight were going to Texas.

(I want to be clear that I understand why a pilot would divert a flight. The passenger bit someone. You divert. That is correct. What I am not prepared to explain is why, of all the airports a Pacific-route aircraft can reach, the answer was Tahiti. Tahiti is one of the more desirable airports to land at unexpectedly. I accept that this is beside the point. I am including it anyway.)

The drunk passenger is now also in Tahiti.

No one on this flight asked to go to Tahiti. Everyone went to Tahiti. This is one of the few documented cases where biting a flight attendant was, in terms of destination, the correct decision.

The passenger is expected to face charges.

In Tahiti.