While both serious and minor medical emergencies could happen during flights, passengers and crew of a transatlantic Delta Air Lines flight encountered a unique and messy situation.
A Delta Air Lines flight made a U-turn last week after a passenger had severe diarrhea onboard. Delta flight DL194 was flying from Atlanta, Georgia to Barcelona, Spain when it turned around 50 minutes into the flight according to Flightradar24. The plane then landed around an hour after in Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta.
A pilot sent a text message to the Air Traffic Controller about their problem onboard. The text message read: “Divert to ATL—passenger diarrhea all over aircraft—biohazard.”
The audio transmission between the pilots and air traffic controller was posted on social media confirming the situation. In the audio recording, one of the pilots reported that “a biohazard issue” on board was the reason for returning to Atlanta.
Diarrhea All Over A/C
He said, “We’ve had a passenger who had diarrhea all the way through the airplane, so they want us to come back to Atlanta.”
The social media post also included a picture of flight-progress strips. The strips indicated that the flight was diverted to Atlanta because of “passenger diarrhea all over a/c.”
A spokesperson from Delta confirmed that a “medical issue” caused the flight to return to Atlanta. The spokesperson said, “Delta flight 194 from Atlanta to Barcelona returned to Atlanta following an onboard medical issue.”
The spokesperson added, “Our team worked as quickly and safely as possible to thoroughly clean the airplane and get our customers to their final destination.” Delta’s spokesperson then issued an apology to their customers for the delay and inconvenience to their flight.
After returning to Atlanta, passengers waited for the crew to finish cleaning the plane. The plane took off before 3 a.m. on September 2 and arrived in Barcelona after eight hours. The flight had 336 passengers.
