Airborne (House)

"Airborne" is the eighteenth episode of the third season of House, the sixty-fourth episode overall.

House (Hugh Laurie) is returning from a pandemics symposium in Singapore with Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein). During the flight, a Korean man by the name of Peng (Jamison Yang) sitting next to House begins vomiting. He also presents with fever, headache, abdominal pain and petechial rashes on his lower back. Cuddy notes that these are classic symptoms of meningococcal disease and that an outbreak might be imminent. Because of their flight path, they must turn back immediately or they will be unable to get medical attention. House is not convinced there is a problem, and persuades the flight crew not to turn the plane around.

Soon another passenger becomes ill with the same symptoms. House assembles a makeshift diagnostic team with three passengers: a boy House instructs to agree with everything he says (thus mimicking Chase), a man who does not speak English, instructed to disagree with everything he says (imitating Foreman), and a woman instructed to get morally outraged at everything he says (as Cameron does). After a discussion with his "team", House is convinced that both passengers are sick with ciguatera poisoning because they both ate seafood. He announces to the rest of the passengers that anyone who ate seafood should go to the restroom and vomit.

However, this theory is contradicted by Cuddy, who is showing similar symptoms despite having not eaten the sea bass. House tells the stewardess to tell the passengers not to worry, but three more people apparently succumb to the same illness. Without any medicine, House collects what antibiotics he can from the passengers. Cuddy then persuades House to do a lumbar puncture to find out whether the illness is meningitis. House does the test, which comes back negative. When Cuddy begins to shout at House to cure the sickness quickly, he realizes that she and the rest of the plane are suffering from mass hysteria. He tests this theory by suggesting to the passengers that one symptom is uncontrollable trembling of the left hand, which many of them immediately start to exhibit, indicating some of the illnesses are psychosomatic.