BOSTON — Thirteen passengers were transported from an American Airlines flight that landed at Logan Airport on Sunday morning.
The passengers were taken to a hospital after falling ill on a flight from Miami to Boston.
An American Airlines spokesman said they were part of a student group. He said no other passengers or crew members felt ill.
More than a dozen passengers on an @AmericanAir flight from MIA to BOS became violently ill mid-flight, officials tell us it was a group of students traveling home together. Hear from a passenger aboard the flight she called "miserable" @boston25
— Julie Leonardi (@JulieLeonardiTV) April 21, 2019
An airline spokesperson said 13 people were treated at a local hospital.
Boston 25 News spoke with a passenger who says she was sitting next to a teenage girl who started feeling sick mid-flight. She then realized more than a dozen other passengers surrounding her were violently ill.
"It was gross, because you have people vomiting and one of them was next to me, it was gross, ugh! I smelled that thing!" said the woman, who asked not to be identified.
The group of teens had originated from a different location before boarding the Boston-bound plane in Miami.
The witness said she believes the passengers were feeling sick before boarding. She said she felt fine during the flight, despite what was happening around her.
"It’s something they had before, because one of them was following me getting on the plane and we were waiting on the line but they were there in front of me and I saw that girl, she kept saying, 'I feel sick. I feel sick' and I don’t know, it was a bunch of them," the woman said.
All of the sick passengers from the student group were sent to the hospital directly from the tarmac.
"They got us out first, everybody out first, the ones that were sick, they stayed on the plane and talked to the medical team," the woman said.
She says she was worried her children would become ill, but she says everyone she was traveling with is feeling OK. They're just taking some extra precaution and sanitizing their belongings.
"I wiped my hand, I washed my hands, and I wipe all the luggage," she said.
American Airlines says no one else outside of the student group reported feeling sick. Massachusetts Port Authority Spokeswoman Samantha Decker and Boston EMS officials say the passengers' symptoms were considered minor.
Decker said she didn't have information on what may have caused the illnesses.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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