Tag Archives: plane

My noro nightmare: vomit on a plane

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A few years ago I had a noro nightmare.

Jack, my then four-year-old son, and I were visiting my brother and sister-in-law in Calgary (that’s in Canada). I was there for a talk, Jack tagged along to hang out with the fam – and so we could buy him hockey equipment (there’s way more selection in the true north).Jackpic2

As we went from store to store, in and out of the car, Jack said that his stomach hurt. I asked him what would make him feel better and he suggested eating Doritos would do the trick.

Ten minutes later, half a bag in, Jack yacked all over the car.

We went home, he stayed on the couch all day complaining of stomach cramps. He fell asleep around 6pm.

We left for the airport at 5am the following morning and he puked in the car (and all over his clothes) again.

After going through security and customs we boarded our first flight to Minnesota. Jack seemed to be better and wasn’t complaining of nausea. When we got to our connection airport he talked me into buying him an ice cream sundae. It wasn’t my proudest parenting moment.

Back in the air about an hour following the dessert-for-lunch meal and all was fine. Until we hit some turbulence as we approached Raleigh. The shaking plane triggered another round of puke, which ended up on him and the window.

The flight attendants responded quickly, and provided me with plastic bags to contain the pukey clothes and coffee pods to manage the smell.

Because there are some sympathy yackers out there.

The flight crew let us off the plane first (although we were in the second-to-last row). I picked Jack up with one arm, carried the vomit-covered clothes bag in the other with our carry-on strapped on my back. I squeezed down the aisle, potentially inoculating the plane with norovirus.

The post-script to the story is that while I didn’t get sick (surprising since I handled all the puke) my brother and sister-in-law did. And maybe a few other passengers.

Calling all norovirus: passenger forced to sit beside vomit on plane

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I’ve encountered vomit in public a few times.

A few weeks ago a fellow food safety nerd and I sat on a Seattle train and watched a woman 20 ft away yack on the floor while her partner consoled her. My friend and I figured that we’d get noro just by being there (we didn’t).CMhGalfWUAAnNds

A few years ago my son threw up on a flight which led to a fascinating approach by Delta Airlines involving plastic bags to contain the risk and coffee pods to manage the smell.

According to BBC, a Rynair passenger was forced to sit next to a vomit pile on a flight from Gatwick to London this week.

A 24-year-old was forced to sit in the same aisle as vomit left by a previous passenger on a Ryanair flight from Gatwick to Dublin on Sunday.

Noel O’Hare noticed the smell and mess as soon as he sat down with his friends on the hour and a half flight.220px-Neilyounglandingonwatercover

He told Newsbeat the “unsightly mess” was on the ground mixed in with a bag and tissues.

Ryanair cabin staff told him that because Gatwick isn’t their base and their cleaners are in Dublin, it couldn’t be cleaned up until they arrived back in Ireland.

Spray and aerosolization of vomit particles makes being in that adjacent seat particularly fun.

A different kind of mile-high club: 12 ill on a flight to LAX

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Illnesses happen on planes, and it’s miserable.

The Los Angeles Times reports that 12 passengers on a flight from Fiji to LAX fell ill with vomiting and nausea. Each of the affected flyers reported staying in the same hotel prior to the flight.

Maybe the best plane-related outbreak was one reported in Clinical Infectious Diseases a couple of years ago. I’d describe my poop and barf-related imagination as pretty good but I couldn’t have dreamt up the scenario that unfolded on a plane leaving Boston bound for Los Angeles in October 2008.F97B1678-9288-4E1F-A6DC-5C807461E2CA

Members of [the] tour group experienced diarrhea and vomiting throughout an airplane flight from Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles, California, resulting in an emergency diversion 3 h after takeoff.

The problematic flight departed Boston on Oct 8, 2008, heading for Los Angeles and carrying among its passengers 35 members of a leaf-peeping tour group. (Four more members of the group had planned other routes home, while two had been hospitalized in the previous 2 days.)

The outbreak included a passenger with “multiple episodes of diarrhea, with at least 1 occurring in the aisle of the first-class section. The soiled aisle was not cleaned until after completion of the flight.”

Gross: Family encounters vomit on a plane

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Illness happens on planes, and when it does it’s miserable.

In 2009 I dealt with campylobacteriosis over a day of travel from Manhattan (Kansas) to Raleigh. In 2013, then four-year-old Jack yacked on a flight which led to a fascinating approach by Delta Airlines involving plastic bags to contain the risk and coffee pods to manage the smell. The flight crew let us off the plane first (although we were in the second-to-last row) as we potentially inoculated the plane and passengers with norovirus.6a00d834e06b8c69e200e54f7819da8834-800wi

According to MyFoxOrlando, the Shirley family encountered a bunch of vomit on a United flight to DC – and maybe their own norovirus inoculation event.

Scott Shirley had boarded a United Airlines flight with his wife and son when the trio noticed an unusual smell after placing their carry-on bags underneath their seats. After realizing their bags were damp, the family recognized the odor as vomit.

“She [Shirley’s wife] reached down and rubbed the ground and goes “the whole ground is wet,” and then she put it to her nose and goes “Oh my god! This is throw up,” Shirley explained to WUSA9.

Shirley says his wife (who ironically, works for FDA -ben) suffers from mysophobia — fear of germs– and she immediately began crying she was so upset. The airline did acknowledge that a passenger seated in that area had become sick on an earlier flight but the family was told it had been cleaned by the cabin crew.

“It was clear that no one had cleaned the area where we were sitting, because there was no evidence of any chemical smell what so ever. This was purely that distinct smell of vomit on our hands and backpacks,” Shirley told the Daily Mail.

CDC recommends using a chlorine bleach solution with a concentration of 1000–5000 ppm to clean and disinfect an area where someone has vomited. Hard to do that on a plane with all the carpet.

Finding vomit on an airplane

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Illness happens on planes, and when it does it’s miserable.

In 2009 I dealt with campylobacteriosis over a day of travel from Manhattan (Kansas) to Raleigh. In 2013, then four-year-old Jack yacked on a flight which led to a fascinating approach by Delta Airlines involving plastic bags to contain the risk and coffee pods to manage the smell. The flight crew let us off the plane first (although we were in the second-to-last row) as we potentially inoculated the plane and passengers with norovirus.

Maybe the best plane-related outbreak was one reported in Clinical Infectious Diseases a couple of years ago. I’d describe my poop and barf-related imagination as pretty good but I couldn’t have dreamt up the scenario that unfolded on a plane leaving Boston bound for Los Angeles in October 2008.111007015237-sick-throwing-up-airplane-motion-story-top

Members of [the] tour group experienced diarrhea and vomiting throughout an airplane flight from Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles, California, resulting in an emergency diversion 3 h after takeoff.

The problematic flight departed Boston on Oct 8, 2008, heading for Los Angeles and carrying among its passengers 35 members of a leaf-peeping tour group. (Four more members of the group had planned other routes home, while two had been hospitalized in the previous 2 days.)

The outbreak included a passenger with “multiple episodes of diarrhea, with at least 1 occurring in the aisle of the first-class section. The soiled aisle was not cleaned until after completion of the flight.”

As the international discussion of Ebola transmission continues, USA Today writes about bodily fluids on airplanes.

[Linda] Cannon, a teacher from Palatine, Ill., was on a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Las Vegas when she felt something wet on her seat. “I pulled out my hand, which was covered in vomit,” she recalls.

The crewmember cleaned the seat while Cannon changed into some clean clothes. But it didn’t help: Bits of upchuck still coated her seat.

“I sat for 3½ hours with the remnants of vomit on my jeans and underwear,” says Cannon. ” I spent the entire flight with nausea and the woman in the next seat telling me it still smelled.”

The passengers who came into contact with blood, urine and vomit wonder who to blame for the lack of hygiene on a plane, and what they’re doing about it.

The answer is a bit complicated. Of course, airlines are responsible for the cleanliness of their aircraft, and it’s a job they say they take seriously.

At American Airlines, for example, planes are tidied up between flights, which can include cleaning the lavatories, seats and replacing any obviously soiled blankets or pillows.

Overnight, the planes are serviced more thoroughly. The restrooms are serviced, seats and tray tables are wiped down, carpets are vacuumed and blankets and pillows are replaced.

Every month, each aircraft is given a “deep” cleaning, where seat covers are washed and the entire cabin is sanitized using government-approved cleaning agents. 

While there have many been plane-linked outbreaks, a quick overnight servicing with a wipe-down could explain reoccurring noro events.