The United Airlines plane had to be grounded – causing knock-on delays – after Meghan Reinertsen suffered a “disturbance deep, deep” in her bowels on the aeroplane
A United Airlines passenger whose “biohazard diarrhoea” episode caused flight cancellations blamed an undercooked burger for the drama.
Meghan Reinertsen apologised after her severe episode cancelled a flight out of Indianapolis, Indiana, as specialists were called to clear up her mess. The 29-year-old woman has now claimed the 90-minute explosion in the lavatory was as a result of taking a few bites of a bloody patty, which gave her violent food poisoning.
Speaking last night, Meghan said: “I had eaten part of an undercooked burger hours before I left to get back to Indiana. I only took a couple of bites because I was like, ‘oof, that’s really undercooked’.” Meghan, who is a live-in nanny, said she bought the burger at the resort where she had been staying with her work family.
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Meghan had been on holiday in Portugal and suddenly felt her “stomach was rumbling” before her final connection, a two-hour flight from Newark in New Jersey to Indianapolis. She experienced pain after boarding the second plane and, 30 minutes into the journey, she rushed to the toilet.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Meghan said: “For the next 20 minutes I had more diarrhoea than any human should ever have in their life.” Meghan said she couldn’t make it back to her seat in her condition, which prompted the flight attendant to tell her through the door to “brace for impact”. Once they were on the ground, she was told that the next flight with that plane had been scrapped.
The actress, from Atlanta, Georgia, recalled panicking in the tiny, claustrophobic area before she had the presence of mind to scream for help from the flight attendants, who gave her bags. The flight crew allowed her to stay in the bathroom for the entire flight. They even got special clearance from the pilot to allow her to remain where she was for landing.
Recalling the encounter further, Meghan said: “A flight attendant comes over and says, ‘Everybody’s off the plane now, go ahead and take your time and come out when you can, the next flight has been cancelled.’ In the moment, I’m not thinking it is because of me.” The flight attendant then told her that a hazmat team would be coming to clean up her mess.
“Got it, so you cancelled that flight because of me…because you don’t know if I brought something back from Portugal. And I am a biohazard. I am patient zero.”
Last month, Meghan went public about the ordeal via TikTok. She told how the experience happened in July 2024 but found it so embarrassing she has struggling with travel since then. The clip was viewed more than 20 million times on Meghan’s TikTok account.