A story reported around the world of a man’s powerful flatulence prompting the evacuation of a Charlotte flight to Raleigh is apparently full of hot air.
Media outlets from the United Kingdom to India were reporting Sunday that an American Airlines flight had to be evacuated in Raleigh after other passengers became sick from smelling an ailing man’s gas.
Not true, say American Airline officials.
“The plane was not evacuated. (A) medical call came in for someone affected by an odor after the plane deplaned normally,” a Raleigh airport official said in an email to the Charlotte Observer.
An American Airlines official added: “We did take an aircraft out of service for a mechanical issue, an odor in the cabin...No ‘passed gas’ issue.”
The (Raleigh) News & Observer said the flight involved in the story was American flight 1927 from Charlotte to RDU. It arrived at the gate 2:21 p.m. Sunday, and there was an odor in the cabin that bothered some on board, the News & Observer reported.
WNCN-TV reported Sunday that passengers had to be evacuated from a flight at Raleigh-Durham International Airport after experiencing headaches and nausea spurred by a foul-smelling odor in the cabin. According to the station, a Raleigh-Durham spokesperson said the odor was from a passenger who “passed gas.”
The International Business Times was even more descriptive, writing the sick man “broke wind so violently it caused nausea and headaches among his fellow passengers.” It reported the plane had landed at Raleigh-Durham on July 16 at around 4 p.m., and cited a U.S. airport official as its source.
Mark Price: 704-358-5245, @markprice_obs
This story was originally published July 16, 2017 8:00 PM.