Delta flight turns around after maggots from dead fish…

Delta flight turns around after maggots from dead fish fall on passenger's head

While the namesake movie cemented "snakes on a plane" as both an expression of chaos and a flying fear, one Delta Air Lines (DAL) passenger had a no less horrifying experience after a swarm of maggots fell on her head from an overhead bid.

The incident, which occurred on the Feb. 13 Flight 133 from Amsterdam to Detroit, was caused by the dead fish that another passenger had wrapped in a newspaper and put in the overhead compartment.

While the entire thing took place too fast for anyone to capture it in a video, a local Detroit Fox news station first reported that dozens of the crawling creatures started falling from the top after a female traveler opened the overhead bag to reach for one of her items once the "fasten seat belt" sign came off.

A flight attendant is seen handling a carry-on bag in an overhead bin.
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'Disgust is one thing, of course'

Some of the nearby passengers initially thought this was some kind of prank until they heard the passenger express distress.

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"She was freaking out," Iowa resident Philip Schotte described of what unfolded in front of him. "She was just trying to kind of fight off these maggots. I don't really know what was going through my mind. I was trying to process it – disgust is one thing, of course."

Flight attendants then started looking through the bins and traced the insect chute to the fish in another passenger's bag in the overhead compartment. As the incident was now a rodent infestation, the plane turned back around to Shiphol International Airport one hour into the flight while flight attendants moved the bag to the back of the plane until landing.

'Really lovely to find out there is rotten fish and maggots hitching a ride with us...'

All of the passengers had to exit the aircraft so that it could undergo a deep cleaning while the bag with the fish was confiscated and destroyed according to Dutch laws on animal and disease control.

One of the passengers aboard the plane took to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter to write about how it was "really lovely to be 2 hours into an 8 hour @Delta from Amsterdam and find out there is rotten fish and maggots hitching a ride with us."

The same passenger later told media outlets that every passenger aboard the flight was given 8,000 Delta air miles (approximately the equivalent of a domestic flight booked early) and a free hotel stay and $30 meal ticket for those who were not rebooked on another flight on the same day.

Delta could not be immediately reached to answer questions on whether the passenger on whom the maggots fell received any additional compensation. Several other nearby travelers also caught some of them as they came down.

"My family and I were in the row directly in front of the maggots," another traveler claiming to have been on the same flight described on Reddit. "The lady right behind us told the flight attendants the maggots were falling on her head. Ugh. I turned around and they were wiggling around on the seat. They moved us further in front though."

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