A plane was forced to make a U-turn in midair after a "foul" smell from a broken toilet filled the entire cabin.
On Friday (March 29), United Airlines Flight 59, took off from Frankfurt, Germany, and was scheduled to land in San Francisco after an 11-hour flight.
According to Daily Mail, FlightAware shows the aircraft circled for a short time over the North Sea to the east of England before the pilot abruptly turned the plane around after passengers reported a nasty odor coming from the toilets.
The cabin crew investigated the matter and discovered that one of the toilets in the seven-year-old Boeing 777 was defective.
To make matters even more disturbing, travelers also complained that the lavatories overflowed and started leaking into the cabin.
Despite attempts to fix the problem in the air by contacting engineers on the ground, a resolution couldn't be found, so the plane was back on the ground in Germany just two hours after taking off.
"On Friday, March 29, United Flight 59 returned to Frankfurt following a maintenance issue with one of the aircraft's lavatories," a statement by United read, per The Mirror.
The passengers were provided with hotel accommodations overnight in Frankfurt and were rebooked on a different flight to San Francisco the next day.
The grim incident comes months after a Delta flight flying passengers from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan, was forced to make a U-turn after maggots descended from the overhead compartment onto passengers sitting in the economy seats.
After the plane landed, all passengers were ordered to leave the aircraft, and a carry-on containing rotten fish, which the maggots had been feasting on, was placed in a bag to be destroyed. The plane itself was also deep cleaned.
One traveler named Kelce took to X (formerly Twitter), to share their experience, writing: "Really lovely to be 2 hours into an 8 hour @Delta to Amsterdam and find out there is rotten fish and maggots hitching a ride with us."
One Reddit user who was reportedly sitting a row ahead of where the incident happened stated that the fish had been packed in newspaper.
"My family and I were in the row directly in front of the maggots. The lady right behind us told the flight attendants the maggots were falling on her head. Ugh. I turned around and they were wiggling around on the seat," they penned.
"They moved us further in front though," the user continued. "One of our carry-on bags was right nearby the disgusting one so at the end of the flight when I went to get it after checking it over thoroughly, the passenger in question was still sitting there and didn't exit the plane."
Kelce also opened up about the shocking event in an interview with the Daily Mail, revealing that employees identified the owner of the rotting bag and arrested them on the plane.
As compensation, travelers were given 8,000 air miles, hotel room compensation, and a $30 meal ticket if they were delayed overnight.