Overview

Barcelona Diarrhea Plane refers to a viral incident in early September 2023 in which a passenger on a transatlantic Delta Airlines flight to Spain reportedly had explosive diarrhea and, unable to contain it, defecated "all throughout the plane." The incident forced the plane to turn around two hours into its flight and land from where it took off in Atlanta, Georgia so that the "biohazard" situation could be addressed. Following news coverage, viral videos and memes, the incident was widely discussed on social media as some expressed horror at the situation while others expressed sympathy for the afflicted passenger.

Background

On September 1st, 2023, a Delta Airlines Airbus A350 flying from Atlanta to Barcelona was forced to turn around two hours into its flight due to a passenger defecating throughout the aircraft. That day, Redditor xStang05x posted to the /r/ATC^[1] subreddit with the flight's logs in which the explanation for the unexpected return trip read, "Passenger diarrhea all over A/C – Biohazard."

On September 3rd, Twitter user @thenewarea51^[2] posted about the flight, including an audio log from the captain saying they were turning around because a passenger had diarrhea "all throughout the plane" and it was a "biohazard" situation. The tweet gained 2,200 retweets and 12,000 likes in three days (shown below). The flight eventually reached its destination after the plane was cleaned and its carpet replaced, eight hours behind schedule.^[3]

A Delta Airlines Airbus A350 turned around back to Atlanta Friday night because of diarrhea throughout the airplane from a passenger and it’s a biohazard. 👀🥴The FAA flight strip for DL194 was posted to Reddit (📷xStang05x) Also a passenger posted here asking why her son’s… pic.twitter.com/VWbkB47wF1

— Thenewarea51 (@thenewarea51) September 3, 2023

Developments

In response to @thenewarea51's tweet, some passengers who were on the flight responded with testimonies of their experience. For example, on September 4th, 2023, Twitter user @John_hurdt^[4] said they were a passenger on the flight and praised the way Delta handled the situation, writing, "It was a mess. The pilots made the right decision to turn around. The ground crew ripped out the carpet and put new in. Considering the circumstances, the ground crew did a great job, along the attendants and the pilots." The tweet gained over 200 retweets and 3,500 likes in two days (shown below, top).

Also on September 4th, Twitter user @woodyssea^[5] said their partner was on the plane and that it "smelled horrible," and the crew's initial attempt to rectify the situation by spraying vanilla air freshener resulted in the cabin smelling like "vanilla s***." Their tweet gained over 140 retweets and 2,100 likes in two days (shown below, bottom).

On September 5th, 2023, Twitter user @arbyswehavethe2 tweeted another video from the flight showing the aftermath in the cabin and aisle. The tweet gained over 140 retweets, 200 quote tweets and 1,300 likes in one day (shown below).

pic.twitter.com/Gg3G3CBiRW

— Xansby Swanson (@arbyswehavethe2) September 5, 2023

Online Reactions

Online, social media users were stunned at the ordeal and joked about the embarrassment they would feel if they were the afflicted passenger.

On September 5th, 2023, Twitter user @Zaackhunt^[5] joked that if he were the passenger, he would go into hiding, gaining over 30 likes in a day (shown below, left). The same day, user @pantydevils^[6] joked that the person would've had to jump out of the plane, gaining over 70 likes in one day (shown below, right).

On TikTok, users expressed similar opinions as the event continued to spread on social media. For example, on September 5th, TikToker @mariamas.trench posted a video encouraging sympathy for the passenger, gaining over 81,000 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below, left). On September 6th, user @johnpagano posted a video diverting attention away from the passenger to a person who took a video while barefoot, gaining over 230 likes in three hours (shown below, right).

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References