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Passenger's 'Unbearable Stench' Forces Transavia Flight to Make Emergency Landing

June 01, 2018
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2 min read
FRANCE-TRANSPORT-PLANE-TRANSAVIA
Passenger's 'Unbearable Stench' Forces Transavia Flight to Make Emergency Landing
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Emergency landings aren't all too uncommon. But emergency landings due to a passenger's "unbearable stench" are.

On Tuesday, a Transavia Airlines flight from Las Palmas (LPA) to Amsterdam (AMS) was forced to divert to Faro (FAO) because a passenger sitting in the last row of the plane stunk so badly that other passengers were getting ill. According to Belgian outlet VRT, several passengers on Transavia Flight 5666 became so violently ill that they vomited or fainted in their seats.

When the stench got so bad, flight attendants on the Boeing 737-800 (registration PH-HXE) tried to quarantine the man in one of the rear lavatories. Crew didn't serve in-flight food or drinks because the odor was so bad. And unfortunately for passengers and crew, not even the isolation eased the putrid smell. As a last resort, pilots decided to divert the aircraft by making an emergency landing in Faro, Portugal — about one hour and 40 minutes after departing Las Palmas, according to flight-tracking website FlightRadar24.

Once the plane landed in Faro, the man was reportedly escorted off and turned over to an awaiting medical team.

"The smell made me think that the man hadn't washed for weeks," passenger Piet Van Huat told VRT. "Eventually we landed in Amsterdam with almost three hours delay. Nobody could stand the stench. Everyone tried to cover his nose."

TPG reached out to Transavia for comment but did not immediately hear back.

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This isn't the first incident of a smelly passenger on a Transavia flight. In February, a Transavia flight between Dubai and Amsterdam was forced to make an emergency landing in Vienna because two passengers reportedly got into an altercation when one wouldn't stop breaking wind. In May, a United passenger filed a lawsuit against the airline after she was booted from business class when another passenger said that she smelled "pungent."

Featured image by AFP/Getty Images

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  • You may be eligible for as high as 100,000 Membership Rewards® Points after you spend $6,000 in eligible purchases on your new Card in your first 6 months of Card Membership. Welcome offers vary and you may not be eligible for an offer. Apply to know if you’re approved and find out your exact welcome offer amount – all with no credit score impact. If you’re approved and choose to accept the Card, your score may be impacted.
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