A U.S. plane was forced to return to Atlanta just two hours after a flight to Spain, with video showing an “onboard medical emergency”: A struggling passenger left a messy trail of diarrhea.
Maintenance crews spent five hours cleaning Delta Air Lines’ Airbus A350 after it was forced to land early, including replacing aisle carpet damaged by the incident.
The flight, which included a passenger who was reported to have diarrhoea, was allowed to board after an eight-hour delay and arrived safely in Barcelona without further incident on Saturday afternoon.
According to social media reports, the crew went to great lengths to wipe down the mess with paper towels and scented sanitizer. But that just caused the plane to “smell like vanilla shit”, one passenger said.
Another passenger described the flight crew laying out a “carpet” made of absorbent paper in the aisle, which passengers deplaning in Atlanta had to climb over their seats to avoid.
Recorded conversations between pilots and air traffic controllers have revealed why the plane made an abrupt turn in central Virginia.
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“It’s just a biohazard issue,” the pilot said. “We had a passenger who had diarrhea the entire flight, so they wanted us to return to Atlanta.”
The audio, posted on X (formerly known as Twitter), along with images of the FAA runway, confirms why the plane made the U-turn.
Delta blamed an “onboard medical issue” for the incident.
“Our teams are working as quickly and safely as possible to get our customers to their final destination. We sincerely apologize to our passengers for the delay to their travel plans and for the inconvenience this has caused them,” the company said. “
The incident comes a week after Air Canada apologized to two passengers flying from Seattle to Montreal after they complained about being forced to sit in seats covered in vomit.
