Delta flight forced to turn around after maggots rain down on passengers

globalnews.ca:

Airline travel can be a nightmare on a good day, but when maggots start raining on you from the overhead compartment you know you’ve hit the bad travel jackpot.

That was the case on a Delta Air Lines flight this week, when passengers were showered with falling maggots after a fellow traveller decided it would be a good idea to transport rotting fish in carry-on luggage.

The plane, headed to Detroit from Amsterdam on Tuesday, was forced to turn around about an hour into the flight when two passengers became the unwitting victims of the falling larvae.

Passenger Philip Schotte, a Netherlands native who lives in Iowa, told Detroit’s WJBK he was sitting near the woman who bore the brunt of the disgusting stowaways and witnessed about a dozen fall on her.

“She was freaking out. She was just trying to kind of fight off these maggots. … I don’t really know what was going through my mind. I was trying to process it — disgust is one thing of course. We had to wait there for help to actually come,” Schotte told the station.

The flight crew traced the maggots to a bag in the overhead bin, which contained rotten fish wrapped in newspaper.

“They found out that there was a rotten fish in there,” Schotte continued. “I did see everyone’s reaction to the bag being opened, which was just an immediate pinching of the nose.”

While the flight crew took the putrid piece of carry-on to the back of the plane, the pilot told passengers they would turn around.

In a statement, Delta said: “We apologize to the customers of flight 133 AMS-DTW as their trip was interrupted due to an improperly packed carry-on bag.

“The aircraft returned to the gate and passengers were placed on the next available flight. The aircraft was removed from service for