Video footage has surfaced on Twitter of the aftermath of the incident that forced a Delta Air Lines flight to turn around Friday, revealing just how disastrous the situation was.
The transatlantic Flight DL194 was headed from Atlanta to Barcelona on Friday, but two hours after departing, the Airbus A350 diverted back to Atlanta following “an onboard medical issue” involving a passenger who had severe bouts of diarrhea “all the way through the plane.”
In the footage that surfaced on Tuesday, the plane’s seats are abandoned, with sheets and pillows sprawled on the chairs. Down the length of an aisle, the blue carpet shows swaths of reddish brown stains covered partly by paper napkins.
One of the pilots had told air traffic control on Friday that the situation was “a biohazard issue.” People who claimed to have been on the flight or who knew others on the flight echoed descriptions of the incident on Twitter.
“Both my wife and I were on the flight. It was a mess,” one user wrote. “The pilots made the right decision to turn around. The ground crew ripped out the carpet and put new in. Considering the circumstances, the ground crew did a great job, along [with] the attendants and the pilots.”
“My partner was on that flight! It was pretty bad. It was dribbled down the aisle, smelled horrible,” another user wrote. “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.”
HuffPost had previously reached out to Delta for clarification about the medical issue that prompted the plane’s diversion but did not immediately receive a response.
After the plane was cleaned in Atlanta, the flight to Barcelona resumed and was completed by around 5 p.m. on Saturday — eight hours later than it was originally scheduled to arrive, according to Insider.