Babies Screamed, Adults Vomited in 4 Hours of Hell Trapped on Sweltering Delta Plane, Passenger Recounts

April Love is a publicist who spent last weekend in Las Vegas working the red carpet for a live taping of this year’s Stellar Gospel Music Awards. After long days on her feet, she just wanted to get back home to Atlanta to relax.

She boarded Delta Flight 555 about 1:35 p.m. local time Monday for a direct flight home from Vegas — and that’s when relaxation went out the window.

Love was among the hapless group of passengers who ended up trapped on a plane with no air conditioning that sat on the tarmac for at least four hours in scorching 111-degree Las Vegas heat.

The now-notorious flight to nowhere turned into a horror show with panicky, and eventually sick, passengers, including some who fainted and had to be carried off the plane on gurneys.

Love was seated midway through the plane and next to a window, where even a lowered shade couldn't begin to keep out the sun's scorching heat.

“It got so hot I had to stand up and move around,” Love told The Messenger in a phone interview Saturday. “It was stifling.”

She’s diabetic and her medical supplies were tucked away in a suitcase somewhere in the belly of the plane, which she worried about constantly.

After two unbearable hours, the also-sweaty flight attendants finally offered each passenger a cup half-filled with water and some ice.

That's when things started getting really ugly, Love said.

Passengers had been told the flight was delayed because the airline needed to bring in extra flight attendants, and then that "something" on the plane needed to be fixed.

But they continued to be trapped on the plane in the suffocating heat.

Passengers became squirmier, sweatier — and sick — as the plane became a human toaster.

Babies screamed. Adults threw up. One passenger had an “accident” in their pants, Love recounted.

Things got so bad that at one point the pilot turned the plane and headed back to the gate for treatment of multiple medical emergencies. A flight attendant who had fainted was rolled away on a gurney.

But once the plane returned to the gate, only certain people were allowed off the plane — mostly those who had already missed a connecting flight.

“They said that any of us whose flight was just to Atlanta would have to pay for another flight if we got off,” Love said. “So we stayed on even longer.”

It had been about four hours in the hot seat at this point.

Medics were then called onboard to assist with sick patients. Three other people were taken away on gurneys.

All passengers eventually disembarked around 7:30 p.m. that night, and made their way back inside to the air-conditioning.

They were given food vouchers of $15; many were given two.

They received hotel vouchers through text messages or email, but the hotels for those vouchers were already booked for the night, Love said.

Love had her own issues to deal with, like trying to book a room, get some food or juice to offset her low blood sugar and track down her luggage to get her insulin supplies.

She was eventually able to leave Harry Reid International Airport by 10:30 that night, only to try and catch a few winks of sleep in a hotel room she had booked, and be back at the airport by 5 a.m. for a flight that left at 7.

That flight was canceled.

She finally caught a later flight back to Atlanta and made it home Tuesday evening. The flight home was, ironically, frigid.

“I guess they tried to make up for the last one,” she quipped to The Messenger.

Love said the only compensation she has received from Delta was 20,000 miles in points. That might get her from Atlanta to Pensacola, Florida, she noted sarcastically.

“I’m a Delta loyalist. My expectation is for Delta to do more. I hope they make sure it never happens again,” she said.

Delta Airlines issued a statement after the nightmare: "Delta teams are looking into the circumstances that led to uncomfortable temperatures inside the cabin, and we appreciate the efforts of our people and first responders at Harry Reid International."

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said he has also launched an investigation following reports of the incident.

"I want to know how it was possible for passengers to be left in triple-digit heat onboard an aircraft for that long," Buttigieg said.

"Even under normal temperatures a tarmac delay is not supposed to go that long, and we have rules about that, which we are actively enforcing, and this is being investigated right now."

He called the situation "infuriating" and "shocking."