Delta flight from US to Spain turned around mid air after ‘diarrhoea’ emergency

A long haul flight had to be turned around in mid air after diarrhoea began “dribbling down the aisle” from a distressed passenger.

A video is believed to show the gross clean-up required after a passenger “had diarrhoea all the way through” an aeroplane.

The long haul flight from Atlanta to Barcelona turned into a horror getaway when hundreds of passengers had to return to the airport they had departed.

Passengers on Delta flight DL194 were delayed by eight hours as the distressing situation was sorted.

Footage reportedly taken inside the empty plane and uploaded to X, formerly Twitter, by a man who is understood to be a family member of a passenger on-board, shows a mess on the carpet up and down the aisle.

There appears to be a number of dirty paper towels.

There was a big mess to clean up. Picture: Twitter / Xansby Swanson

The Airbus A350 jet left Delta’s biggest US base for Spain’s second largest city already two hours late at around 8.45pm local time on Friday.

The plane, which fully loaded can carry around 330 passengers, initially headed north east towards the Atlantic Ocean over the states of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.

The Delta jet was forced to turn around. Picture: Yuki Iwamura / AFP

However, close to the city of Richmond in Virginia, and around an hour into the journey, the Delta pilots requested the plane turn back.

Cancelling a flight while the jet is in the air is costly for an airline with wasted fuel and the need to find a new crew.

But a recording of the communication between the pilots and air traffic control, uploaded to Twitter – now known as X, showed there was very little choice.

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

“It’s a biohazard issue, we had a passenger who had diarrhoea all the way through the airplane,” the pilot can be heard saying.

On social media one person claimed their partner was on the crappy 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***”.

The fight landed back in Atlanta at around 10.40pm, by this time four hours after it should have originally left.

The service then took off again at 3am from Atlanta arriving in Barcelona at 5pm the same day, some eight hours late.

In total, the plane was eight hours late to its destination. Picture: David Dee Delgado / Getty Images via AFP

In a statement to website Insider, Delta confirmed a “medical issue” had occurred on flight DL194.

“Our teams worked as quickly and safely as possible to thoroughly clean the airplane and get our customers to their final destination.

“We sincerely apologise to our customers for the delay and inconvenience to their travel plans.”

Delta did not confirm the exact nature of the medical issue.