A plane. Obviously not the one in the story. Ah well. (Picture: PA)

A plane was diverted from its path and forced to land, after a woman passenger started lighting matches to cover up her flatulence.

The escalation in America’s War on Farting came on an internal flight between Washington and Dallas, which was forced to land in Nashville when passengers told cabin crew that they could smell burning matches.

After an emergency landing, passengers were evacuated from the plane for security screening, the luggage hold was cleared, and bomb-sniffing dogs were sent onto the plane.

The dogs eventually found a number of spent matches under one passenger’s seat.


Under FBI questioning, the woman admitted that she was lighting matches –which is illegal on a plane – in an attempt to conceal ‘body odour’.



Reports claim that the woman has ‘a medical condition’.

The plane eventually took off again, without the smelly woman, who an airline spokeswoman said had been banned from their flights ‘for a long time’.