Crews in hazmat suits had to clean up the bathroom.
It may be one of the worst nightmares for fliers: getting sick on a flight. Last year, Meghan Reinertsen lived this nightmare when she was flying back from Portugal and got violently ill on her connecting flight from Newark to Indianapolis. She spent 90 minutes in the lavatory and remained inside even during landing. Her next flight was canceled when a hazmat team had to clean up. A year later, she has publicly apologized to anyone who may have been affected.
@meghanreinertsen Part 1 of how I personally got a United flight cancelled #storytime #airplane #diarrhea @United Airlines ♬ original sound – Meghan Reinertsen
In two videos uploaded to TikTok, Reinertsen, an actor who supports herself as a live-in nanny, recounted the ordeal from July last year. The trouble began after her transatlantic flight from Portugal to Newark. She was on her way to board her connecting flight to Indianapolis when she felt sick and sweaty. In the first 30 minutes of the two-hour flight, she experienced stomach cramps and had to use the lavatory, despite the seatbelt sign being on. “For the next 20 minutes I had more diarrhea than any human should ever have in their life,” she said in the video.
Even at home, food poisoning is painful and uncomfortable. In a small, confined airplane lavatory, the experience is even more distressing. But it didn’t end there—Reinertsen also felt nauseated and screamed for help from flight attendants, who gave her a barf bag.
For the next hour and a half, she stayed in the lavatory with flight attendants checking in on her. She was in no state to come out for landing, so the crew got her permission to remain in the toilet. When the plane landed, they told her to brace for impact.
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Other passengers may have known what was going on, Reinertsen confessed, because she was moaning in pain. The flight attendants were very kind and told her that they were all parents. “A flight attendant comes over and says, ‘Everybody’s off the plane now, go ahead and take your time and come out when you can, the next flight has been cancelled.”
She did not realize at the time that the flight was canceled because of her, but a flight attendant informed her later that a hazmat team had been called in to clean up after her. She was treated as a biohazard, and the crew must have been concerned that she carried something from Portugal, she belatedly grasped.
Not able to walk, she was wheeled to baggage claim. From there, she drove herself to her hotel—and soiled the bed. The front-desk clerk reassured her that it happened more often than she realized.
In a follow-up video, Reinertsen said she got food poisoning after eating a few bites of an undercooked burger in Portugal. She thought she could handle the two-hour flight. Twenty million people have watched her confession and apology; in the comments, many shared their own experiences with norovirus. Flight attendants also chimed in, saying they’re prepared for such situations and would not have judged her.
If you feel sick before a flight, it’s better to skip boarding or alert the crew as soon as possible. They may be able to provide medication or consult a ground-based doctor.
Related: What Do I Do if I Get Food Poisoning in the Middle of My Flight?
Although not common, in-flight illnesses do occur. Last year, a flight en route to Rome returned to the U.S. after a passenger suffered a medical issue later reported as diarrhea. In 2023, a pilot’s conversation with air traffic control was posted on X (formerly Twitter), confirming a biohazard situation: “We had a passenger who had diarrhea all the way through the airplane so they want us to come back to Atlanta.”