Delta flight makes U-turn after passenger has diarrhoea ‘all through plane’

A Delta Air Lines flight was diverted due to a passenger's diarrhoea (Representational image)

A Delta flight from the United States to Spain was forced to make a U-turn after a passenger suffered diarrhoea “all the way through the airplane.”

According to Flightradar24 data quoted by Insider, the flight turned around after just two hours into its journey from Atlanta, US to Barcelona, Spain on Friday night. A snippet of the conversation between a pilot and air traffic control was shared on X (formerly Twitter), which seemed to confirm that cause of the U-turn was not a technical snag but rather a medical issue.

“This is a biohazard issue,” a pilot can be heard telling air traffic control. “We've had a passenger who's had diarrhoea all the way through the airplane, so they want us to come back to Atlanta.”

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.

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 — Thenewarea51 (@thenewarea51) September 3, 2023

A person whose partner was on the Delta Air Lines flight described the situation as pretty bad, saying the scented disinfectant used by crew did little to mitigate the stink.

“My partner was on that flight! It was pretty bad. It was dribbled down the aisle, smelled horrible. The vanilla scented disinfectant used on it only made it smell like vanilla s***. After the plane landed, it was thoroughly cleaned. They didn’t leave until around 2:30 am,” the person wrote.

After returning to Atlanta, passengers and crew were transferred to another flight. They made it to Barcelona the next day - eight hours later than originally scheduled. Meanwhile, cleaning crew were apparently able to scrub the affected Airbus A350 aircraft down – flight data shows the same plane was used for another journey later on.

Delta confirmed that a “medical issue” had caused the diversion of the US-Spain flight but refused to elaborate on the kind of medical issue.