A Delta flight traveling from Atlanta to Barcelona had to return to its departure point because a passenger experienced severe diarrhea which "ran all the way through the plane."
Flight DL194 had already left Georgia and was flying over Virginia when the pilots decided not to proceed with the 8-hour flight and turned around.
Last Friday, a Delta flight from Atlanta to Barcelona was forced to turn back after one of the passengers experienced a severe case of diarrhea
Image credits: thenewarea51
Image credits: thenewarea51
If this was a first for the captain, you wouldn't have guessed it from his straight-to-the-point explanation to Air Traffic Control: "Divert to ATL — passenger diarrhea all over aircraft — biohazard," the message read.
The same message was also conveyed over the radio. "It's just a biohazard issue, we had a passenger who had diarrhea all the way through the airplane so they want us to come back to Atlanta," the captain is heard telling Air Traffic Control on the recording shared on X (formerly Twitter).
The captain made the decision two hours into an 8-hour flight
Image credits: thenewarea51
Family members of the passengers who were fighting off the stench had no clue what the hell was going on on-board the plane
Image credits: thenewarea51
Image credits: Gietje (not the actual photo)
After the plane made it back safe and sound, the passengers had some interesting first-hand experiences to share. "My partner was on that flight! It was pretty bad. It was dribbled down the aisle, smelled horrible," wrote Dee W. on X.
"The vanilla scented disinfectant used on it only made it smell like vanilla [poop]. After the plane landed, it was thoroughly cleaned. They didn't leave until around 2:30am."
"Both my wife and I were on the flight. It was a mess," John Hurdt, one of the passengers, wrote. "The pilots made the right decision to turn around. The ground crew ripped out the carpet and put a new one in."
The same flight reached its destination the following day, 8 hours and 6 minutes behind its original schedule
Image credits: Kenny Eliason (not the actual photo)
Although there's no further information regarding the person whose "onboard medical issue" made the plane turn around, Delta had this to say about the incident: "Our teams worked as quickly and safely as possible to thoroughly clean the airplane and get our customers to their final destination."
"We sincerely apologize to our customers for the delay and inconvenience to their travel plans," the airline wrote in a statement.
The flight, carrying 336 passengers, safely landed the following day, 8 hours and 6 minutes behind its original schedule, without further incident.
Soon after the internet learned about this Delta flight that had been forced to land due to biohazardous diarrhea, people started sharing first-hand information
Image credits: ScooterCasterNY
However unbelievable it sounds, this hasn't been the first time a plane was forced to ground after a bad case of poo.
In 2015, a 7-hour British Airways flight heading from Heathrow to Dubai was forced to turn around after pungent-smelling "liquid fecal excrement" was considered a "health and safety problem" by the crew.
"Insane. Our BA flight to Dubai returned back to Heathrow because of a smelly poo in the toilet," Abhishek Sachdev, one of the passengers, tweeted afterward.
Of course, the internet took this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to crack a few puns
