Alex Trelinski
A TRANSATLANTIC Delta Air Lines flight last Friday between Atlanta and Barcelona was forced to turn around after a passenger had a ‘medical issue’, which audio from the flight deck suggests involved a passenger having diarrhoea in the aircraft’s cabin.
The plane was two hours into the eight-hour journey to the Catalan capital when it had to make a U-turn back to the States.
An audio transmission between the pilots and air-traffic control recorded by an aviation enthusiast showed the reverse course was nothing to do with a technical problem involving the Airbus A350.
“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.”
Flight DL194 didn’t complete its journey to Barcelona until 5 pm on Saturday- eight hours later than it was scheduled to arrive, according to Flightradar24.
The departure had already been delayed by two hours before the incident on board.
But Flightradar24 data suggested cleaning crews sorted the problem because the same plane was used for the second journey.
Delta confirmed a ‘medical issue’ on board meant the plane had to return to Atlanta to be cleaned, though it did not disclose the exact nature of the problem.
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