8 smelly times poo and farts have forced planes to land early

Children are toilet trained at a young age but for some reason it seems that some fail to retain this life skill as they enter adulthood

At least you'd be forgiven for thinking so, given the number of people who have done poos so terrible, they have caused planes to land early.

Yup, sure as the day follows into night, humans will ruin everything with their gross behaviour and this is something that actually happens, more often than you might think

So without further apoo, here are all the times calls of nature have disrupted people's travel plans.

1. Delta's diarrhoea disaster

A long-haul flight was forced to turn around after experiencing a "biohazard issue" from a passenger who "had diarrhoea all the way through."

The Delta flight on 2 September between Atlanta and Barcelona headed back around an hour into the journey.

In a post reshared to X/Twitter, LiveATC.com captured audio of the pilot explaining the situation.

"This is a biohazard issue," the pilot said. "We’ve had a passenger who’s had diarrhoea all the way through the aeroplane, so they want us to come back to Atlanta."

2. Farting fights

In 2018, An unnamed man on a Transavia Airlines plane from Dubai to Amsterdam was forcibly removed from the aircraft after he farted so much that the plane had to stop in Vienna, Austria.

According to reports, two men who were sitting next to the person in question asked the man to stop passing wind, and it got so bad a fight even broke out.

3. 'Smelly poo' scare

In 2015, a British Airways flight heading to Dubai from Heathrow was forced to turn around because of a "smelly poo" just 30 minutes into the seven-hour flight.

Abhishek Sachdev, who was on board tweeted: "Insane. Our BA flight to Dubai returned back to Heathrow because of a smelly poo in the toilet."

He told a newspaper: "The pilot made an announcement requesting senior cabin crew, and we knew something was a bit odd.

"About 10 minutes later he said 'you may have noticed there's a quite pungent smell coming from one of the toilets'.

"He said it was liquid faecal excrement. Those are the words he used."

British Airways pilot jailed for fraud after lying about flight experience PA

4. Dog poo disruption

It is not just humans who have disrupted flights with their bowels. In 2014, a dog took a dump in the middle of a Philadelphia-bound flight, forcing an emergency landing.

The flight was going from Los Angeles and the incident made people around the plane sick, reportedly.

5. Cow catastrophe

Other animals also have a lot to answer for. On a Boeing 747 flight over the Irish Sea, the methane emissions from 400 cows in the cargo area reportedly caused the plane to overheat.

The pilot mistakenly thought there was a fire on board after a sudden increase in temperature, so he sent out a distress signal, the Daily Star reported.

6. Fiery fart

In 2006, an American Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing after a passenger lit a match to disguise the scent of her wind.

The Dallas-bound flight was diverted to Nashville after several passengers reported smelling burning sulfur from the matches, said Lynne Lowrance, spokeswoman for the Nashville International Airport Authority.

She had an unspecified medical condition, authorities said.

The flight took off again, but the woman, who was not identified, was not allowed back on the plane.

7. Giant by name, giant by nature

Andre the Giant once did the 'world's biggest poo' on a plane leaving passengers gagging WWE

Wrestling legend Andre The Giant once left plane passengers travelling from Tokyo to the US "gagging, puking and crying'" and putting masks on after doing a poo on a flight.

Brutus Beefcake, a fellow wrestler was on the flight and said he "couldn’t breathe" and other passengers "screamed" from the smell.

He told Wrestling Shoot Interviews: “I’ve never heard anything like it. The sounds that are coming out of there.

“The smell that started coming forward, the back of the plane had a lot of people. There were people falling out of their seats and into the aisles.

“Gagging, puking, crying, screaming, and we were all falling on the floor laughing ourselves sick.

“I couldn’t breathe. He must have half filled-up a garbage bag full of s**t.”

8. Excrement emergency

Finally last year a British Airways passenger allegedly did a poo on the floor and wiped it around the plane.

Passengers on the aircraft, which was due to fly from Heathrow Airport to Nigeria, was delayed for around three hours while the plane was replaced with a less dirty one.

The science

Should we blame people for their bowel behaviour though?

Maybe not for the flatulence, at least. Jacob Rosenberg, who is a clinical professor at the University of Copenhagen, told the BBC that being on a plane makes you fart more than when on the ground because your stomach inflates in the low pressure.

He interviewed aeroplane engineers at Copenhagen, and he found that many airlines already use charcoal filters in the air conditioning which absorbs a range of odours.

Nevertheless, pooing so badly that you cause a flight to ground is quite something.

So next time you're rushing through security to go on your holibobs, make sure you factor in some time to use the loo - or you might end up making international news for all the wrong reasons.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.