At the airport, conventional wisdom keeps most travelers from joking around with words like "bomb" and "explosion." And as a new video purportedly shows, we probably want to add "Ebola" to that list, too.
On October 8, authorities met a US Airways flight from Philadelphia to Punta Cana due to a possible health issue onboard, The Huffington Post confirmed. A passenger was removed, checked by medical personnel and later cleared, as you'll see in the video above.
The man in question had caused concern among his fellow passengers by shouting "I have Ebola!" and joking that he'd recently been to Africa, according to a report by Fox News Latino. (HuffPost is still working to independently confirm this with airport authorities.) Another passenger filmed the aftermath once the plane landed.
"It's going to look worse than it is," a flight attendant explains in the video just before four officials in blue hazmat suits can be seen boarding the plane. "I've done this for 36 years," she assures the cabin. "I think the man who said this is an idiot."
Nevertheless, the airline didn't take any chances, alerting Dominican airport security and health authorities to the issue onboard the flight. The rest of the passengers weren't allowed off the plane until two hours after landing, according to the video description. Lesson: If you don't want to make enemies with a plane full of people, don't joke about a deadly and very serious virus that's already claimed nearly 4,000 lives, including one that was diagnosed in the U.S.
This isn't the first time Ebola scares have disrupted air travel, either. Just yesterday, medical personnel responded to a United Airlines flight that landed in Birmingham, Alabama, amid rumors of an infected passenger. And over the weekend, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention workers boarded a plane at Newark Airport in New Jersey, to remove two passengers due to potential Ebola symptoms.
Potential exposure to Ebola was also a concern raised by 200 airplane cleaners at LaGuardia Airport in New York who are striking in demand of safer working conditions. LaGuardia officials have promised to review the group's concerns.
Related
Before You Go
