The Delta Airlines Airbus A350 that left Atlanta on Friday for Barcelona had to turn around due to the indisposition of a passenger. The case has gone viral due to its peculiar and eschatological nature. An “explosive diarrhea” that the pilot classified as a “biological risk” and that has ended up in headlines around the world.
The pilot’s call. According to CNN, he told controllers: “It’s just a matter of biohazard. We had a passenger who had diarrhea all over the plane.” Insider explains that the case went viral from a thread on the popular Reddit forum that referred to the dimensions of the case. The audio of the supposed recording of the pilot’s warning has flown on social networks:
The protocol, step by step. Airline sources explained to Europa Press that the pilot himself classified the situation as a “biological risk.”
One of the passengers speaks. Versió de RAC1 spoke this Monday with Carles, one of the passengers. He said that until the moment he got off back to Atlanta, when he could see the stained areas that the crew had been covering, he did not know much about what was happening, beyond the pilot’s warning that there was a sick person and they were returning to Atlanta for a biological reason. About what he saw he leaves a phrase in his interview: “That was a festival.” Other details have been appearing on social networks, including alleged images that the brother of a passenger would have shared on networks.
The airline’s response. Delta has stressed, Europa Press reports, that the safety of passengers and crew is its “number one priority” and has apologized to customers who suffered delays due to the unforeseen event. “Delta staff worked to reaccommodate passengers on other flights or provide hotel accommodations and to change customers’ reservations to other flights,” company sources have detailed. According to the traveler contacted by RAC1, the airline has given a bonus of 200 dollars (about 190 euros) to each traveler affected “by the disruption caused”, an amount that can be used for one year on company flights.
Other cases. CNN collects other eschatological cases from recent flights. In August, on an Air Canada Las Vegas-Montreal flight, two passengers sat in seats that had not been cleaned after another passenger became ill with vomit on a previous flight. In June, an Air France Paris-Toronto flight also found traces of fluid from another passenger who reported that in his case the flight attendant offered him wipes to clean it himself. They did not change his seat. For its part, the BBC recalls that this case comes days after 11 passengers and staff on a flight from Milan to Atlanta were hospitalized after an episode of severe turbulence.
