Last Updated: September 07, 2023, 14:28 IST
Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)

Maintenance crews spent five hours cleaning the Delta Airlines Airbus A350 after its enforced early landing, including replacing an aisle carpet ruined in the incident.c (Representative Image)
US airliner forced back to Atlanta due to a messy onboard medical emergency involving a passenger with diarrhea. Eight-hour delay
A distressed passenger’s diarrhea incident recently forced a US airliner to return to Atlanta, USA, just two hours into its journey to Spain, according to a report by The Guardian.
Due to the onboard emergency, Delta Airlines’ Airbus A350 suffered an unscheduled landing for five hours of cleaning, which included replacing a soiled aisle carpet. After an eight-hour delay, passengers, including the person suffering from diarrhea, were permitted to re-board and ultimately reached Barcelona on Saturday afternoon.
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
Accounts from some passengers, shared on social media, revealed the flight crew cleaned the mess using paper towels and scented disinfectant. However, according to one traveler, this attempt inadvertently turned the plane into a “smell of vanilla excrement.” Another passenger described cabin crew placing an absorbent paper “runner” over the aisle, forcing passengers to clamber over seats as they disembarked in Atlanta.
The UK newspaper said that an audio recording of a conversation between the pilot and air traffic control revealed the reason behind the aircraft’s abrupt return over central Virginia. The pilot said, “It’s merely a biohazard issue. We had a passenger who had diarrhea throughout the airplane, so they instructed us to return to Atlanta.”
Delta Airlines attributed the incident to an “onboard medical issue” and expressed apologies for the delay and the inconvenience it caused to travelers.
This event occurred just one week after Air Canada issued an apology to two passengers who were removed from a flight from Seattle to Montreal due to their complaints about being seated in vomit-covered seats.