A Delta Airlines passenger is returning to solid ground after less-than-solid bowel movements aboard a flight from Atlanta to Barcelona this week.
Flights have a long history of getting a little messy — take the man who urinated all over business class or the doctor who joined the “one-man mile-high club” as prime examples — but this news from aboard a Delta flight departing from Atlanta might set a new standard for flying gone filthy.
As reported by View From The Wing, Delta Air Lines Flight 194 from Atlanta to Barcelona found itself in a rather unpleasant situation when a passenger’s bout of severe diarrhea wreaked havoc throughout the aircraft, leading to the flight being declared a “biohazard.”
WATCH: Post Malone finds inspiration on the bog:
The incident unfolded two hours into the flight to Spain as the Airbus A350 cruised over Virginia. It was at this point that the pilot urgently communicated with air traffic control citing a “biohazard issue” that necessitated an immediate turnaround.
The airline promptly instructed the pilot to reverse course and passengers were brought back to Atlanta, where they patiently waited for a thorough cleaning of the aircraft to be completed and a fresh new cabin crew to be assembled.
Passengers eventually resumed their journey, reboarding the same aircraft at 2:57am on Saturday morning, with their total delay clocking in at eight gruelling hours. They finally touched down in Barcelona at 5:10pm local time.
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
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the official reason for the diversion was as follows: “Divert to ATL — passenger diarrhea all over aircraft — biohazard.” This was corroborated by recorded air traffic control conversations, which featured the striking phrase:
“It’s just a biohazard issue; we had a passenger who had diarrhea all the way through the airplane.”
ATL Air Traffic Controller
One can only imagine the captain and passengers’ reaction when informed that they were the second aircraft in line for landing, further extending their time in the air with the aforementioned hazard.
Although this is an undeniably pretty grizzly incident, passengers have since reported that the cleanup job was so thorough that the original incident was totally unnoticeable at the time of reboarding, meaning that the delay was definitely time well spent and that Delta deserves a solid pat on the back for handling things so effectively.
While we all have tummy troubles and don’t often have the luxury of choosing where and when they strike, my advice to anyone feeling a little turbulent in their bowels before boarding would be to play it safe and skip the flight altogether; a late arrival is bad, but becoming a ‘biohazard’ is far worse.