Mr. Poopy Pants’ Relative?

July 14, 2009

in Odor Stories

In 1988, while working for American Airlines, I had the misfortune of running into a possible relative of the now notorious “Mr. Poopy Pants.”

It was a hot, sunny day in July, as the Boeing 727 from Dallas had just arrived. It was late, as usual, and this was a turnaround flight. Once the passengers were deplaned, the ground crew made their dash down the aisles, picking up garbage, folding blankets, and doing whatever was necessary to get the aircraft ready for a 20 minute turnaround for its flight back to Dallas, TX. I had the job of collecting the blue blankets, folding them and stuffing them back in the overhead compartments. As I approached the mid section of the aircraft, near the galley, I picked up what looked to be just your average airline blanket. But lo and behold, this was no average blanket. It was holding nice surprise for me!

As I reached for the towel, my hand came into contact with something cold and pasty feeling. The blood drained from my face as I immediately realized I had just put my hand in someone else’s diarrhea! I pulled my hand from the blanket to see that it was covered from finger tip to wrist in dark brown, runny, stinky human excrement! I yelled out something I can’t repeat here, and everyone around me saw the mortified look on my face. This was the biggest load of runny dung I had ever seen! The blanket was dripping poo on the floor and on my shoes now as I scrambled to get the blanket wrapped up. I ran for the nearest exit near the galley door and flung that thing as far as I could. I turned around to find my fellow cabin crew workers practically rolling in the floor, laughing so hard I thought we were at the Improv.

The coach class seat was soiled all the way through, and whole section behind the main galley now smelled something awful. My job as crew chief wasn’t done. This was a full flight and someone else was booked to sit there. We got yellow tape and sectioned off the three seats in that row. It looked like a police barrier by the time we were finished with it. Seats were scrubbed and aerosol applied, but to no avail. It was going to be a long trip back to Dallas, Texas for the poor souls that had to sit around this nightmare.

The plane finally got off the ground, and I went straight home to shower and change into a clean uniform.

I wore long latex gloves from then on!

Signed, AA Crewchief

{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }

Jodi July 16, 2009 at 4:21 am

OMG that is so gross.

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Jeanie July 16, 2009 at 6:44 am

Gross, indeed! Was the expletive you yelled directly related to what you had just encountered in that blanket?

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Anonymous July 16, 2009 at 10:14 am

thats disgusting

but how does a plane come from dallas and than leave to go to dallas? isnt it already in dallas?

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SAW July 16, 2009 at 11:54 am

Probably the dallas –> Houston run, but we'll give him a break on the typo

I think there's probably a LOT more reasons to be wearing latex gloves, and I'd venture to guess, as a crew chief, you've been spared a few times since then. Eeew.

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Anon July 16, 2009 at 11:17 pm

No typo, the author says the plane from Dallas had arrived, indicating that the flight had come from (and as a result was no longer in) Dallas. Hence the plane was not violating the laws of Physics in going back to Dallas.

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Daron July 17, 2009 at 6:46 am

That is correct. Actually, this took place in a little city called Fresno, CA. It was the Dallas to Fresno turnaround flight at about 11:00am. It had come FROM Dallas, and we were sending it BACK to Dallas. I don't work for AA anymore, I teach. Though I still deal with poo!

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Alex July 17, 2009 at 8:29 pm

Aaaand . . . this is why I never use airline blankets or pillows.

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SAW July 18, 2009 at 1:56 am

Amen Alex.. and you should see what kind of germs some studies show are on the airline pillows… now we know how they get there. yich!

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bd July 20, 2009 at 11:44 am

I'm not calling BS or anything. I just find it a little odd that the smell had gone unnoticed until you discovered the crap-soaked blanket. I mean, something that bad would have surely been wafting throughout the cabin long before you put your hand in it. How do you not smell that in such close proximity? It's not like it was contained inside an air-tight tupperware container or ziploc bag!

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Atari August 13, 2009 at 10:16 am

Sometimes, things like that just happen, BD, or so I suspect.

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