Airline Passenger Discovers Floor Under His Seat Soaked with Blood
The passenger, a journalist, told CNN, “I’ve lived through wars, airstrikes...I didn’t expect to find more blood than I’ve seen in Beirut on an Air France plane"
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Habib Battah was traveling from Paris to Toronto on June 30 when he discovered the floor under his seat — along with his wife’s seat — was soaked in blood.
The Beirut-based journalist, who was traveling with his wife and their two cats on an Air France Boeing 777, told CNN that he noticed a strange smell shortly after takeoff.
“It smelled like manure,” he said. “It was our first time traveling with the cats, and I was thinking, ‘Oh god, they’ve had an accident, I’m so embarrassed.”’
“Then I thought, maybe it’s someone’s body odor,” he continued. “I was sniffing and sniffing, then said, ‘Let me get the cats out.’”
“I looked at the cats – the poor cats were totally fine,” he told the outlet. Crouching on the floor to check on his pets. He then spotted a damp spot on the floor under the cat carriers – about 20 inches long and wide – and waved at a flight attendant for assistance.
He continued: “I said ‘It smells like merde – s--t.’ She handed me wet wipes. I started wiping and it was red — blood red. And it kept coming up red. I was like, ‘What the hell is this?’ I just wanted to see what it was. After a while, one of the flight attendants said, ‘You’d better go wash your hands, and here are some gloves.’”
“I’ve been covering Beirut for 20 years as a journalist,” Battah told CNN. “I’ve lived through wars, airstrikes, seen assassinations, car bombs, and narrowly survived the port explosion. I thought I’d seen it all. I didn’t expect to find more blood than I’ve seen in Beirut on an Air France plane.”
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While Battah was cleaning, the flight attendant told her colleagues about the situation and the pilot was contacting Paris, inquiring about the bloody mark below seats 30A and 30B.
Air France HQ replied the blood came from a human. The previous day, on a flight from Paris to Boston, a man had experienced what Battah says the crew referred to as a “hemorrhage." The passenger reportedly survived.
The pilot asked that the area be sanitized for the plane’s trip back to Paris but the cleaners overlooked the floor.
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“I didn’t know it was blood until a flight attendant said, casually, ‘Oh, we heard another passenger had a hemorrhage’,” Battah explained. “Then I noticed the cat carrier was stained as well. I asked, ‘What’s your protocol for this?’ But they said nothing. I’m pretty sure there is none.”
The couple — given “two small bottles of Evian water” to compensate them for the situation — were unable to change seats because of the packed.
Air France called Battah later, he shared, and told him that the stain was both blood and feces.
“As per procedure in this type of situation, a complete clean-up of the area was requested and the row of seats was made unavailable on the return flight [from Boston to Paris],” Air France told CNN in a statement. “A customer traveling on the next flight from Paris (CDG) to Toronto (YYZ) reported residual traces of blood on the floor, soiling his personal belongings. The crew immediately assisted him in cleaning his belongings, providing him with suitable equipment such as sterile gloves and disinfectant wipes.
“As the flight was fully booked, it was not possible to move the passenger,” they said, adding that “an internal investigation has been launched to understand the reasons for this situation.”
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