Sheehan and his wife had set sail from South Florida on March 5. But their cruise to Puerto Rico, Antigua, Spain and France appeared doomed from the start.
Three days into it, on March 8, a husband and wife who had coronavirus symptoms disembarked in Puerto Rico.
On March 12, the government of the Cayman Islands said a man who'd left the cruise ship on an earlier voyage in late February with flu-like symptoms tested positive for coronavirus. He was the Cayman Islands' first confirmed case, and died days later.
Then on March 13, the cruise ship said it got confirmation that the woman who had disembarked in Puerto Rico tested positive and officials notified those aboard, multiple passengers told CNN. A week later, she died.
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France granted it permission to dock in Marseille on March 19. The cruise line notified Americans and Canadians that it had planned a charter airplane to take them to Atlanta.
Costa coordinated the flight along with the French government and health authorities, Carnival said. The State Department, which has worked to repatriate Americans, also told CNN that the cruise line arranged for the flight.
Sheehan and more than 350 Americans and Canadians were loaded on buses, where they waited for hours before boarding the chartered overnight flight to Atlanta.
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At the cargo area where the plane landed, passengers were met by health officials in hazmat suits, Bradbury said. They got a temperature check and a visual assessment, along with paperwork asking whether someone had a cough, a sore throat or other ailments associated with coronavirus, she said.
Those with signs of possible illness were taken into a separate room while those with no symptoms headed to customs, and were later put in buses that dropped them off near a terminal, Bradbury said. From there, they were all told to go in and get their bags.
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"We're thinking someone is going to be meeting us ... nope. You just walk in and you're in the terminal with everybody else. We were shocked," Bradbury said.
Several passengers told CNN they were allowed to wander around inside the airport, including at least one person who was symptomatic.
