Students Sick on Continental Flight

By Paddy Clancy

A CONTINENTAL Airlines jet on a flight from Newark, New Jersey was isolated on landing at Dublin on Sunday during preliminary fears of a terrorist threat.

More than 180 people were kept on board for health checks, and police were on standby when the aircraft landed on Sunday with a number of sick passengers.

Five were rushed to hospital with food poisoning. Several others were treated on board and later in the Dublin Airport terminal after all passengers were eventually permitted to alight.

The alert was raised when cabin crew discovered that several members of a 25-strong party of students from the University of Philadelphia, en route to Co. Down, became distressed on the six-hour flight.

There were initial fears of a terrorist-inspired poisoning epidemic, but it was finally established that the passengers were carrying a food poisoning bug across the Atlantic after eating a chicken meal in Newark the night before takeoff.

Ambulances and police were on stand-by when the plane landed at Dublin Airport. The 173 passengers and eight crew were not permitted to leave until an airport doctor and a Health Service Executive (HSE) team of medics examined them.

Twelve of the students, six described as “quite ill,” were kept under observation on the plane for almost three hours. The rest of the passengers were allowed off after one hour.

Stewardesses, concerned by an outbreak of vomiting and diarrhea among the stricken group early in the flight, had established that the students dined in a restaurant together before departure.

Dublin Airport spokeswoman Siobhan Moore said, “Those who had eaten chicken became unwell and when they arrived the aircraft was isolated so that we could assess exactly what the infection was.

“The HSE ambulance medics and our own ambulances were standing by and it was eventually established that they had suffered food poisoning.”

Gardai (police) confirmed they were alerted about the drama on board and were at the scene when the aircraft landed.

A spokesman said, “When the nature of the problem was established and it was evidently not a Garda matter we had no further role.”

The aircraft was permitted to make its return journey to Newark later the same day.