A lice incident caused a plane to make an emergency landing while it was making its way to New York City earlier this summer.
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In a mid-June TikTok video, Ethan Judelson, who was a passenger on the American Airlines flight, revealed that the plane was on its way to the Big Apple from Los Angeles when things took a head-scratching turn.
@ethanforyou Replying to @Ana kyriakos ♬ original sound – Ethan Judelson
Judelson stated that a woman had such a bad case of head lice that it forced the plane to be redirected. However, the flight attendant gave very little information about why the aircraft was forced to touch down.
“I look around, no one’s on the ground, no one’s freaking out. I’m like, it can’t be that dire,” he explained in the TikTok video. “But we land, and as soon as we land, this woman across the aisle from me shoots up and rushes to the front of the plane.”
Judelson then told PEOPLE a little over a month after the ordeal that he and his seatmate dismissed the woman’s urgency. They both just thought she was an impatient passenger. They didn’t suspect she was the one with lice on the plane.
“It just seemed like one of those people who, as soon as the seatbelt sign goes off, gets up and tries to be the first to their bag,” he observed. “So the girl next to me … we were both like, ‘Why is she so rushed to get off? We’re all getting off together, calm down.’”
Judelson shared that the flight’s team told everyone they would learn more about the situation once deplaned. However, he said the only thing they learned at the gate was that their flight to New York would take off in 12 hours.
The Plane’s Passengers Panic After Lice Incident
Judelson went on to share that he and the other passengers decided to wait 12 hours for the flight. However, no one was revealing what caused the emergency landing to begin. With the exception of the two passengers who were sitting next to the woman who got off the plane quickly.
When asked what they knew about the situation, the girls made cryptic comments. “They were like, ‘Let’s just say it was in the best interest of everyone here that they did this. It’s for the safety of the plane,'” Judelson recalled. He then said he found out the following day by “word of mouth” about the lice.
“I wasn’t sure and wasn’t going to say anything at TSA,” he explained. He was trying to confirm if the comments were true. “I heard them talking about it again, and then tapped them on the shoulder and was like, ‘Did you say lice?'”
The other passengers told him that the plane was grounded by lice. They then explained what they knew of the situation. “Apparently those two girls, they saw bugs crawling out of the woman’s hair,” he said. He was referring to the two girls who gave cryptic answers 12 hours before. “And alerted the flight attendant
However, while boarding, Judelson said the girls refused to sit in the same seat they were assigned to. This caused a major scene that resulted in the women being moved and someone else taking the seats.
American Airlines did not release a statement about what led to the emergency landing. It did say the diverted stop was due to the “medical needs” of a customer onboard