Boeing 737 Max 8 Alaska Airlines plane forced to divert after flight attendants fall ill from 'unknown smell on aircraft'

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Several flight attendants on board an Alaska Airlines flight have been hospitalised after falling ill.

The Boeing 737 Alaska Airlines flight was forced to turn around on Thursday (12 September) before reaching its destination after four attendants fell sick due to an “unknown smell on the aircraft”. A Seattle-bound plane from Lihue, Kauai was forced to land in Honolulu.

Four members of staff had to be treated by paramedics and taken to hospital. Honolulu EMS later said that the attendants had shown symptoms of nausea and disturbed coordination. 

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Several flight attendants on board an Alaska Airlines flight have been hospitalised after falling ill. (Photo: Getty Images)Several flight attendants on board an Alaska Airlines flight have been hospitalised after falling ill. (Photo: Getty Images)
Several flight attendants on board an Alaska Airlines flight have been hospitalised after falling ill. (Photo: Getty Images) | Getty Images

In a statement, Alaska Airlines confirmed that none of the other crew members or 119 passengers fell ill. After the emergency stopover, the plane was flown to Seattle without any of the passengers for inspection. 

It remains unclear whether the attendants are still in the hospital and what caused them to be ill. All 119 passengers were stranded in Honolulu overnight, although Alaska Airlines says it had worked to re-accommodate customers on alternative flights back to Seattle on Friday (13 September).

The incident comes less than two years after another Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-800 flying from Kauaʻi to Seattle was forced to divert after two flight attendants became “incapacitated” due to an unknown smell onboard the aircraft. In that case, the plane also diverted to Honolulu, where all four flight attendants had to be treated for minor injuries following what the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) described as a fume event.

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