Judo master sues American airline after flight attendant allegedly splashes hot coffee into his eye

Arturas Lanchinskas, 30, a third-degree black belt who owns a prominent martial arts school in Brighton Beach, has filed a lawsuit against JetBlue Airways, an American low-cost airline headquartered in New York City.

He cited severe burns and irreversible eye damage from the accident, according to the New York Post.

The incident occurred in July 2023 on JetBlue flight 1825 while Lanchinskas was traveling to Peru to coach the U.S. team at the Pan American Judo Championships.

According to the lawsuit, a flight attendant serving hot coffee to a nearby passenger dropped the pot, causing the liquid to splash onto Lanchinskas's face and into his right eye. As a result, the plaintiff sustained severe burns on the right side of his face and significant damage to his right eye.

Lanchinskas described the experience "felt like a surge of fire hit the surface of my eyeball."

"The pain was sharp and immediate, like a burning needle," he said, as quoted by New York Post.

The passenger who requested coffee was a doctor who immediately provided assistance, instructing Lanchinskas to continuously rinse his eye with clean water in the lavatory.

However, according to Arturas's lawyer, instead of assisting, flight attendants reprimanded him for using the lavatory too frequently.

"They told him 'sir, you are not the only one on the plane, we have other passengers who need to use the lavatory'," his lawyer stated, as reported by the Daily Mail.

Upon arrival in Peru, Lanchinskas sought medical treatment for the burns to his face and eye. After returning to the U.S., eye specialists in New York diagnosed him with thermal and chemical injuries to his right eye. He said he now experiences permanent vision loss and increased sensitivity to light.

The 30-year-old martial artist demands that JetBlue provide "full, fair, and reasonable" compensation under the Montreal Convention, which governs airline liability for injuries during international flights, as said in the lawsuit cited by New York Post and Daily Mail.

His lawyer emphasized that the injury has profoundly affected Lanchinskas, both personally and professionally, particularly due to his career in martial arts, according to the news sites.

Lanchinskas had previously led the U.S. Judo team to secure two silver and five individual bronze medals at the 2023 U15 Pan American Championships.