There are lots of things that are no longer funny on post 9/11 airplanes.
"Detectives believe the odour came from a broken glass vial containing a clear clear liquid giving off a 'rotten egg' smell,"
From high school chemistry class, butyric acid springs to mind. Nasty rotten egg smell. They would use it in VERY small amounts while conducting diffusion experiments. You could smell it from fifty feet away about two seconds after the top was off the bottle.
Y'mean the in-flight movie was "Da Vinci Code"?
Oh, I dunno, what was the meal on the flight? That might have something to do with it.