A United flight diverted after a passenger's medical issue caused a 'biohazard' that made the crew vomit
A United Airlines flight diverted because of a passenger's medical issue.
In an air-traffic-control recording, a pilot says crew members are vomiting because of the "biohazard."
The plane was deep-cleaned and landed in Boston six hours later.
A United Airlines flight diverted and was deep-cleaned after a passenger's "medical issue" led to crew members vomiting, according to a recording of a pilot speaking to air traffic controllers.
The Boeing 737 was flying from Houston to Boston on Sunday but diverted to Washington Dulles Airport about two hours into the journey, according to Flightradar24.
In an air-traffic-control recording posted by the flight-tracking site RadarBox on X, a pilot says, "The crew is vomiting, and passengers all around are asking for masks."
"Especially with this kind of being a biohazard, I think we need to probably get this plane on the ground ASAP," he adds.
United Airlines crew and passengers vomited due to a “biohazard” from a passenger, and flight #UA2477 diverted to Dulles this afternoon. ✈️
View #UA2477's data at https://t.co/yICHnUvaVJ #UnitedAirlines #FlightEmergency #Aviation pic.twitter.com/qOsPUzWvww— RadarBox (@RadarBoxCom) July 29, 2024
The travel news site Live and Let's Fly reported that a passenger's burst colostomy bag caused the diversion.
According to United, there were 155 passengers and six crew members on board. Nobody needed medical assistance on arrival.
"United flight UA2477 (Houston—Boston) diverted to Washington-Dulles after a customer experienced a medical issue," the airline said in a statement shared with Business Insider. "We deep-cleaned the aircraft and it departed for Boston later that afternoon."
United didn't comment further on the specifics of the incident.
Diversions can displace pilots and aircraft, creating a snowball effect throughout an airline's network.
Data from Flightradar24 shows the United 737 continued to Boston about six hours after landing in Washington, DC. Passengers on the plane's next flight back to Houston were delayed nearly five hours.
A similar incident happened in September when a Delta Air Lines plane U-turned after a passenger had diarrhea in the cabin.
Last month, another United plane was deep-cleaned and taken out of service after dozens of passengers fell ill with symptoms including vomiting.
Correction: August 1, 2024 — Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this story misstated a detail from the recording of the pilot. He says that crew members are vomiting but not that passengers are.
Read the original article on Business Insider