Delta plane forced to turn around due to maggots on board

A plane trip can definitely contain many surprises. Passengers of the American company Delta, present on board the flight linking Amsterdam to Detroit on Tuesday February 13, learned this the hard way: an hour after the plane took off, a “rain” of maggots fell. on the passengers, forcing the pilot to turn around to clean the aircraft.

According to a Dutch traveler living in Iowa, a dozen maggots escaped from the carry-on storage area mid-flight. “They fell directly on my wife's head... I'm trying to digest the event but the disgust is still present,” he testified in an interview with Fox 2.

Alerted by the cries of the passengers, the stewards examined the storage spaces to identify the source of the pests. They eventually figured out that the maggots came from one of the passengers' hand luggage, which contained a piece of rotting fish. This discovery aroused the anger of travelers, as evidenced by this vitriolic tweet published by a man named Kelce. “Really nice to be 2 hours away from an 8 hour Delta to Amsterdam and find out there are rotten fish and maggots hitchhiking with us,” the passenger posted on X (formerly Twitter ).

Faced with the fright of the passengers, the captain preferred to turn around, or return to Amsterdam, to completely clean the aircraft. It seems that the owner of the baggage containing the spoiled fish was lectured at length by the company, since he remained on the plane throughout the cleaning, according to statements from other passengers. In a statement to FoxNews, the airline apologized to its passengers: “The trip was interrupted due to improperly packed carry-on baggage. The plane returned to the gate and the passengers were placed on the next available flight. The aircraft has been removed from service for cleaning,” the carrier detailed.

Delta didn't just apologize to injured travelers. Passengers forced to travel with maggots were offered 8,000 airline miles, which corresponds to a voucher for a future flight. Once they arrived in Amsterdam, they were able to eat and spend the night in a hotel at the company's expense.