There’s nothing like adding insult to injury when it’s snowing like cats outside, your flight is already late and you have to pull up to the de-ice pad for a half hour of soaking.
When flight 528 from Seattle to Burbank moved up for de-icing this week though, that’s exactly what happened. Apparently during the process, some of the fluid seeped into the aircraft’s ventilation system and dispersed into the cabin, choking passengers and raising alarm.
Amazingly enough, despite passengers vomiting and getting ill, nobody wanted to return to the airport to get checked out because the flight was already late. Despite their wishes, however, the aircraft was returned to the gate and nearly twenty passengers were evacuated and treated for their injuries. Nobody was seriously injured.
Normally, de-icing is a fairly standard procedure, as our resident pilot, Kent Wien detailed in one of his earlier posts. This isolated incident may have just had to do with improper de-icing techniques or a malfunctioning ventillation system.