Sep 5, 2018
Citing a government sources, CBS New York says Emirates’ home office told U.S. officials it believes this incident was caused by food poisoning and that there is no evidence of a security or terror issue.The Centers for Disease Control and U.S. Customs and Border Protection were notified.As law enforcement and health officials responded on the ground, the plane was held away from the terminals.Sick passengers were triaged on the plane. Eventually, ten people were taken off and transported to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center.Ten people have been taken to the hospital, eight were being treated on site and others were being evaluated after the pilot of an Emirates Airline jet declared a medical emergency before landing at JFK International Airport Wednesday morning.Some passengers took to Twitter to describe the scene, including Erin Sykes who wrote “worst flight ever Dubai to NYC; plane was basically a flying infermary. Many of these people should never have been allowed to board. Now sitting on the ground after 14 hour flight unable to leave.”All passengers from flight EK 203 were screened by local health authorities before they disembarked from the plane at JFK, Emirates Airlines announced on Twitter.In a statement, the U.S. Customs & Border Protection provided an overview of how U.S. authorities are prepared to react to incidents like this: agencies that responded at JFK today include the CDC, Port Authority, FDNY and CBP.Eric Phillips, a spokesman for NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, initially tweeted that the flight stopped in Mecca, which is experiencing a flu outbreak, and “early indications point to that as a possibility.”Phillips later issued a correction, saying the flight arrived in New York directly from Dubai, and that it had, in fact, not stopped in Mecca before touching down in Dubai.
https://abc7ny.com/live-plane-carrying-dozens-of-sick-passengers-lands-at-jfk/4152344/