In a bizarre incident of an emergency landing, a plane to Spain was forced to make a detour not due to a technical glitch but because of a passenger’s ‘unbearable’ body odour. The stench of a man on the Transavia flight to the island of Gran Canaria in Spain was so strong that it made fellow travellers vomit and faint.
The Boeing 737 Transavia flight was forced to divert to Faro in Portugal shortly after it took off from Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands. The man smelt ‘like he hadn’t washed in weeks’ and was reportedly quarantined in the plane’s toilet by the crew after passengers became distressed.
The plane then landed in Faro in southern Portugal where the man was escorted out of the flight. One of the passengers captured a picture of the man being taken to a bus by medical personnel. A Belgian passenger, Piet van Haut, who was on board the Transavia plane said, “It was like he hadn’t washed himself for several weeks. Several passengers got sick and had to puke.”
Transavia confirmed that the flight made emergency landing stating ‘medical reasons’. However, it is not clear whether the medical reasons were related to the man or other passengers on the plane who were ill due to the stench. A Transavia spokesman said, “The aeroplane diverted because of medical reasons, but it is indeed right that he smelled quite a bit.”
In February, a Transavia plane from Dubai to Amsterdam was forced to make an emergency landing in Vienna after a passenger’s excessive flatulence caused an argument between several passengers.
