A US flight bound for Barcelona had to turn back just hours into the journey because a passenger suffered diarrhoea “all through the plane”, according to reports.
The Delta Airlines Airbus A350 flight departed Atlanta city in the state of Georgia on Friday evening bound for Spain, but had to divert back to Atlanta after the bizarre “biohazard issue”.
In an audio transmission from the flight deck posted on social media site X by an aviation enthusiast, the pilot said: “This is a biohazard issue. We’ve had a passenger who has had diarrhoea all the way through the airplane, so they want us to come back to Atlanta.”
More than 300 passengers were onboard.
John Hurdt said he and his wife were passengers on the flight and “it was a mess”.
“The pilots made the right decision to turn around. The ground crew ripped out the carpet and put new in. Considering the circumstances, the ground crew did a great job, along the attendants and the pilots,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
A person who claimed their partner was on the flight said diarrhoea was “dribbled down the aisle” and “smelled horrible” in a post to X.
“The vanilla scented disinfectant used on it only made it smell like vanilla s***. After the plane landed, it was thoroughly cleaned. They didn’t leave until around 2:30am,” X user Dee W wrote.
A Delta Airlines Airbus A350 turned around back to Atlanta Friday night because of diarrhea throughout the airplane from a passenger and it’s a biohazard. 👀🥴
— Thenewarea51 (@thenewarea51) September 3, 2023
The FAA flight strip for DL194 was posted to Reddit (📷xStang05x) Also a passenger posted here asking why her son’s… pic.twitter.com/VWbkB47wF1
Delta Airlines told the Standard: “Delta flight 194 on September 1 from Atlanta to Barcelona returned to Atlanta following an onboard medical issue.
“Our teams worked as quickly and safely as possible to get our customers to their final destination. We sincerely apologise to our customers for the delay and inconvenience to their travel plans.”
The flight landed without further incident the next day, Saturday, at 5.16pm, more than eight hours behind schedule.
Last week, 11 passengers and crew were also hospitalised after severe turbulence on a Delta flight from Milan to Atlanta, the airline said.
In June an EasyJet flight from Manchester to Turkey had to be diverted after two Russian men became drunk and unruly.
The two men, aged 48 and 39, were so disruptive that the flight had to be diverted to Greece and the men were arrested and charged.
