Update, Sept. 7, 2023 at 2:34 PM:
Passengers on a Delta Airlines flight that was forced to return to Atlanta fear they may have been exposed to infectious diarrhea.
The Barcelona-bound Airbus A350 with 336 passengers returned to Atlanta on Sept. 1 after a passenger had explosive diarrhea onboard.
Infectious diarrhea can be spread if it splashes on a surface or on a person.
“I woke up and there was a bit of a strange smell,” one passenger told Futurism. The anonymous passenger said the flight attendants were forced to craft makeshift biohazard suits to protect themselves from the steaming mess.
The passenger said flight attendants used napkins and blankets to cover the watery diarrhea on the floor.
They “tried to handle it,” said the passenger, but “it was just so bad.”
He said the crew quarantined the ailing passenger in the lavatory until the last few minutes of the flight.
“They just kind of kept him in there,” the passenger added.
The Delta pilot requested to turn around over central Virginia and return to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport because there was a “biohazard” medical issue on board, ABC News reported.
“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 pilot told air traffic control.
Cell phone video uploaded to Twitter/X shows a trail of watery diarrhea in the aisle between two rows of seats.
The plane was in the air for about 2 hours after its departure from Atlanta when the incident occurred.
The flight was delayed for over eight hours while a hazmat crew cleaned the plane.
“They actually took out all the carpets for one section of it,” the passenger told Futurism. “We were waiting three hours at the airport while they were trying to clean it, but they couldn’t clean it, so they had to rip off the carpet and change it.”
The biohazard crew reportedly tested a sample of the diarrhea for Salmonella, Shigella, Campylobacter, Yersinia, and Clostridium difficile.
Diarrhea is usually tested if the patient has a fever, bloody stools, abdominal pain, or signs of sepsis.
“Our teams worked as quickly and safely as possible to get our customers to their final destination,” a Delta spokesperson said. “We sincerely apologize to our customers for the delay and inconvenience to their travel plans.”
The plane landed in Barcelona on Saturday, Sept. 2, at 5.16 p.m. local time.
— Xansby Swanson (@arbyswehavethe2) September 5, 2023
