Delta flight forced to turn back after passenger suffers bout of diarrhoea that spread 'all over aircraft'

5 September 2023, 08:25

A Delta flight was forced to turn back around after a passenger suffered a bout of diarrhoea that spread "all over" the aircraft.

The plane - which was flying from Atlanta to Barcelona - had left Georgia and was over Virginia when the pilots decided there was no choice but to abandon the journey.

In a message sent to Air Traffic Control, the captain said: "Divert to ATL — passenger diarrhoea all over aircraft — biohazard."

Audio recordings also confirmed the situation, with the pilots heard saying: "It's just a biohazard issue, we had a passenger who had diarrhoea all the way through the airplane so they want us to come back to Atlanta."

The aircraft is understood to have touched down in Atlanta at 10.40pm before resuming its journey to Spain just over five hours later at 3am.

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Some of the passengers who witnessed the incident praised the crew's quick clean-up operation.

One person said: "Both my wife and I were on the flight. 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."

A second added: "My partner was on that flight! It was pretty bad. It was dribbled down the aisle, smelled horrible.

"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.

"The flight was met by emergency vehicles and EMTs carried the sick passenger off the plane.

"My partner said the plane was cleaner when they got back on at 2am than it was the first time they got on. No smell either."

Delta said in a statement: "'Our teams worked as quickly and safely as possible to thoroughly clean the airplane and get our customers to their final destination.

"We sincerely apologise to our customers for the delay and inconvenience to their travel plans."