Unhappiness with air travel took a new turn when maggots rained down on passengers on a Delta flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan, on Tuesday.
A passenger reportedly brought rotten fish on to the plane in a carry-on bag, and placed it in an overhead bin, before the maggots broke free and rained on to passengers seated below, the Independent reported.
Philip Schotte, a Netherlands native who lives in Iowa, told local news Fox 2 that he saw at least a dozen maggots falling on a woman mid-flight.
“I don’t really know what was going through my mind. I was trying to process it – disgust is one thing of course,” Schotte told the outlet. “We had to wait there for help to actually come.”
Schotte recalled that the flight attendants tracked the maggots to a passenger’s bag in the overhead compartments and found a fish wrapped in a newspaper. After the man it belonged to claimed it, Schotte said flight attendants took it away and the pilot announced that the flight would be returning to the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam.
In a statement given to Fox 2, Delta apologized to its passengers: “Their trip was interrupted due to an improperly packed carry-on bag. The aircraft returned to the gate and passengers were placed on the next available flight. The aircraft was removed from service for cleaning.”
Another passenger named Kelce tweeted about the incident in a since-deleted post: “Really lovely to be 2 hours into an 8 hour @Delta to Amsterdam and find out there is rotten fish and maggots hitching a ride with us.”
The passenger said they, and others on the plane, were allegedly given 8,000 free air miles, hotel room compensation and a $30 meal ticket for the inconvenience.
