Plane quarantined after fliers sickened

NEW YORK — A commercial jet from Dubai prompted a large-scale emergency response at New York’s Kennedy Airport on Wednesday after a pilot reported that several passengers and crew members complained about having a flu-like illness.

The Emirates flight with 520 passengers was swarmed by emergency vehicles and immediately quarantined after it landed for an assessment by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fire officials said 10 people were hospitalized. Emirates airline said they included seven crew members and three passengers. The CDC said about 100 people aboard the plane were also evaluated after complaining of illness, including cough and fever.

“Given the symptoms that we are seeing in the patients and given the history that they present, it looks like this is probably influenza,” Acting New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot said.

Sykes, in an interview, said that “many, many” passengers showed signs of illness, which included “Very intense coughing. Violently sick. Going into the bathroom a lot.”

A traveler in the business section of the aircraft, Raghida Dergham, said that sick passengers were in a “lower level” economy section of the plane.

But other passengers said they suspected that some passengers were sick before they got on the plane and that the airline should have done more to protect others.

AP/BEBETO MATTHEWS Emergency crews surround a jetliner from Dubai that landed Wednesday at Kennedy Airport in New York with several passengers and crew members ill.