Flights are canceled for a variety of reasons every day, ranging from inclement weather to maintenance issues with the aircraft.
In the case of one United Airlines flight last summer, the reason was a lot more unique–and disgusting. In a recent video, an online influencer admitted to getting the flight grounded because she had destroyed the airplane bathroom during an in-air bout with norovirus.
Last month, writer and actress Meghan Reinertsen produced an eight-minute TikTok video on the one-year anniversary of her flying mishap, admitting all the gnarly details from her ordeal on the flight from Newark, N.J. to Indianapolis.
“If that flight cancellation changed the trajectory of your life in a really negative way, I’m so sorry,” Reinertsen said.
What happened
Reinertsen was flying from Portugal to Newark and then to Indianapolis. According to her video, she woke up about five hours into the flight and 30 minutes from Newark Airport, sensing “a disturbance” in her stomach.
She made it off the plane and through customs before going to board her connecting flight to Indianapolis. While Reinertsen thought she could go to the bathroom and get through the worst of her issues, that wasn’t the case.
“I’m full body sweating, I’m crying, my insides are cramping,” Reinertsen said, adding that she spent the first 30 minutes of the flight in “agonizing pain.”
At that point, Reinertsen said she ignored the seatbelt warning and jetted to the bathroom.
“For the next 20 minutes I had more diarrhea than any human should ever have in their life,” she said.
It only got worse from there
In addition to her explosive diarrhea, Reinertsen said she also began vomiting, which led to her calling a United crew member for assistance.
Reinertsen said the crew graciously provided her with bags and allowed her to stay in the bathroom for the remainder of the flight. Once the plane landed, she was informed that the aircraft’s next flight had been canceled because of her.
“They canceled that flight because of me. The hazmat team [had] to come in and clean it, because [they didn’t] know if I’d brought [a disease] back from Portugal,” Reinertsen said. “And I am a biohazard. I am patient zero.”
Eventually, Reinertsen was taken off the plane in a wheelchair because she couldn’t walk. She blamed the illness on an undercooked hamburger she consumed the night before flying home.
United confirmed the incident took place
Thankfully, United Airlines did not embarrass Reinertsen publicly, but did admit that the nightmare she experienced occurred.
“Our flight crew is trained to assist customers in situations like this and helped as much as they could during the flight and upon arrival in Indianapolis,” the airline said in a statement.
