'Flight from Hell' grounded by mystery illness as hazmat team is forced to enter
The opening episode of Fox's Fringe investigated a harrowing incident where a plane full of passengers was infected by a biological weapon and had their skin crystallized. While that's obviously just a scary sci-fi story, it feels like it's not a million miles away from a year that's already seen us report on Frankenstein rabbits, fears of Mars bacteria triggering a pandemic, and a California man catching the plague.
It's also a scary time for plane news, with tragedies like 67 people losing their lives when American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with a Black Hawk helicopter, as well as the miraculous sole survivor of Air India 171.
As reported by Kennedy News, scenes of 'pandemonium' unfolded when six passengers were struck down by a mystery illness on a British Airways 'flight from hell'. And you thought broken toilets were bad.
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Melanie Wells explained how the flight took off from London and was heading to Egypt. Wells and her daughter were looking forward to a $10,000 all-inclusive break, with the 61-year-old admitting: "I hadn’t been away for ages, it was definitely much-needed."
What should've been a relaxing break soon turned out to be anything but that when she started to feel sick upon boarding the flight. Wells alleged: "When we boarded, the temperature was so extreme that I started to feel unwell. It was supersonically hot. I ended up getting a really bad headache."
Even though Wells hadn't been feeling well before the vacation, and initially put her nausea down to the heat, she noticed others around her were also turning green: "About an hour and a half in the air, crew members suddenly began running down the aisle backward and forward. I didn’t know what was going on.
"There was one mom whose eyes rolled into the back of her head. The crew looking after them had actually collapsed."
Wells claims that six people on the flight fell sick, with her maintaining that her symptoms were brought on by noxious fumes.
The plane made an emergency landing in Venice, with ambulances and fire engines quickly surrounding the grounded plane. Emergency crews wearing hazmat suits and breathing apparatuses reportedly stormed the plane and started conducting tests on passengers and crew.
Wells recalled: "I was absolutely terrified. I was thinking, have we all been inhaling toxic fumes?”
With staff supposedly in 'pure panic mode', the angry passenger said the captain kept them in the dark. Following an eight-hour delay in Italy, the plane returned to London and then landed in Egypt the next day.
Calling the experience 'horrific', Wells complained about the 40-hour ordeal and was offered nearly $3,000 in compensation. Still, she's not happy that the carrier apparently refused to refund her $667 for a missed night in Egypt. She concluded: "BA have performed in the most cavalier manner. The distress and trauma we went through, it was utterly traumatic. It ruined the start of our holiday."
As for the mystery of the illness on board, BA is yet to confirm what happened. It instead says the flight was "diverted “as a precaution because of a technical issue."
A spokesperson reiterated: "We’ve apologized to our customers for their experience and have offered compensation accordingly."