Wednesday September 5, 2018
NEW YORK (FOX5NY) - Emergency personnel responded to reports of sick passengers aboard an Emirates flight arriving at JFK Airport on Wednesday morning. Hazardous materials crews were called to the scene just after 9 a.m. after the plane landed safely. The New York City mayor's office say the plane has been quarantined.
An airport source tells Fox 5 News that there was a "medical emergency" onboard the plane. Passengers were in the process of being removed from and placed onto busses. Some flight crew members were seen being loaded into ambulances on the tarmac.
In a statement, Emirates said that "about" 10 passengers became ill and local health authorities were alerted "as a precaution."
There were about 500 people on Flight #EK203 from Dubai. The plane had stopped in Mecca, where there's a flu outbreak, Fox News reported.
All of the passengers from the plane were going to be examined away from the main terminal to make sure that there was not any risk of a contagious disease spreading.
A spokesman for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says representatives of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were on the scene.
A New York Police Department counterterrorism division tweeted that it was monitoring what appeared to be a "medical situation."