air traffic
Plane turns back because of maggots in overhead compartment
The aircraft has returned and been taken out of service for cleaning. (Symbolic image) photo
© Rick Bowmer/AP/dpa
A calm flight turns into a scene of disgust: maggots suddenly rain down from above, straight from the overhead compartment. Passengers trapped in the seats experience a nightmare.
It’s an unsavory scene: falling out of the overhead compartment on a plane Maggots on the passengers. According to media reports, this happened on a flight from Amsterdam. The American airline Delta Airlines flew back to Amsterdam, the Dutch news agency ANP reported.
The plane was traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit in the USA and was already over England when maggots fell out of the overhead compartment after about an hour of flight – this is how passenger Philip Schotte described it to the agency. The animals came from a bag with rotten fish.
In a statement quoted by US media, the airline apologized to passengers for the fact that their journey was “interrupted due to incorrectly packed hand luggage”. The aircraft returned and was taken out of service for cleaning. The passengers were rebooked on the next available flight.
According to his own statements, Schotte was sitting right next to a woman on whom the maggots had fallen. “At some point I saw that she was wiping maggots from her chair with a piece of paper. … She was very frightened,” the ANP news agency quoted him as saying. He and the woman then informed the cabin crew. The crew found the bag and wrapped it in plastic. Passengers reacted in shock and used the flashlights on their cell phones to see if maggots were still crawling around somewhere, the Dutchman said, according to ANP.