AIDS Test Samples Fall From Plane
Blood and urine samples that were to be tested for AIDS and hepatitis fell from a cargo plane flying over the city, and an officer who investigated was tested for possible infection, officials said Friday.
A cooler containing bags of the samples dropped from an open main cabin door of a Top Flight Air Service plane Thursday and landed on a road in a sparsely populated area of this southwest Florida city, authorities said.
“The cooler broke open and all the bags broke in the road,” police spokesman Michael Mayor said. “It was a mess. We don’t know how much of it there was.”
Officers determined that the samples were headed to Damon Clinical Laboratories Inc. in Tampa to be tested for the AIDS virus and hepatitis.
In the process of identifying the samples, one officer touched the materials, Mayor said. The officer was tested for possible infection, but the results were not known.
A representative of Damon Clinical Laboratories helped the city’s hazardous waste team clean the spill and make an inventory of the samples, police said. Officials with the Tampa-based company refused to comment Friday.
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen in Atlanta said investigators were checking to find out why the cabin door was open on the Navajo cargo plane.
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