One Hundred Ill on A380
 

The aircraft is being held away from the terminal at JFK.
See: 100 Ill on Emirates Flight

- Ed :yuk:

Statement from EK:

September is a month with "R" isn't it?
So one could have the huitres again?

Did they have the steak or the fish for dinner?

From New York Mayor's spokesman Eric Phillips:

Quote:

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Flight started in Dubai and stopped in Mecca, which is experiencing a flu outbreak. Early indications point to that as a POSSIBILITY. More to come

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[url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bzpIeEPhCEAJ:[ame]https://twitter.com/EricFPhillips/status/1037340969065177088+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=u s][/ame]https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bzpIeEPhCEAJ:

Twitter

Local New York media now reporting that the 10 people sent to Jamaica Hospital were 7 crew and 3 pax.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmf...2d161b95ec.jpg
Picture by passenger Larry Coben - Twitter

EK203 is a direct DXB-JFK service, and according to FR24 that's exactly what it did today: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/f...ek203#1dc0a2a2

Yep, that tweet was obviously erroneous like the report that the outboard thrust reversers on the plane were inoperative. ;)

I must try out the airport in Mecca next time I'm out that way

Try the fish platter.....

CDC reports it was 100 pax and crew...I wonder who speaks the truth? I know where I might look...

Do you have a cite for the CDC report?

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmf...f73bc98c95.jpg

A similar event occurred in France yesterday. Pax and crew on a flight from Oran, Algeria were held when it arrived at Perpignan after a child was suspected of having cholera. She was taken to hospital for tests. There is a cholera epidemic in Algeria, with a number of deaths.
Details of everyone on board were taken before they were allowed to leave.
The aircraft returned empty to Algeria to be cleaned and disinfected.

More from the mayor's spokesman Eric Phillips:

good luck with that. the cruise ship experience with norovirus is that disinfection is very hard. Bleach works, but are you going to soak every carpet, cushion, nook and cranny with it?

Mass psychogenic illness, perhaps?

I've experienced something similar when I was cabin crew at a major Japanese airline: Flight from FCO to NRT, many PAX had eaten seafood before leaving. They were mostly seniors and elderly on their first trip to Europe after a long hard working life and no clue about food safety abroad (in Japan you can eat raw eggs and fish without a worry). I had 9 PAX in economy class with food poisoning...it was awful.
Noone quaranteened them or us, we just hoped the elderly would survive the 10+ hours of loosing liquids violently!
So for this Emirates flight, perhaps the avaition authorities in the US are being somewhat overly cautious, to put it in a PC kind of way?

Well, almost certainly the authorities are being over-cautious on this occasion.

However, they are in a dilemma; it is fantastically unlikely that any one incident represents a serious risk to the wider population. But fantastically unlikely things always eventually happen - I don't have to tell that to pilots.

My colleagues who work on emerging infectious disease tell me that
1. A pandemic that kills 100s of millions is inevitable, whether that will be next week or next decade no-one knows, but it is close to certain.
2. The massive increase in air-travel will be one of the primary drivers that will convert this pandemic from a nasty local flare-up that self limits, to a global catastrophe.

I assume you have an Armageddon cupboard full of key supplies in case the unlikely happens? 😉