Source – When an airliner has to land, it has to land.
At least, that was the case with an Air Canada Rouge flight from Athens to Toronto that made an emergency diversion to Montreal recently for a surprising reason.
Onboard sensors indicated that all of the Boeing 767’s toilets were full after much of the 10-hour flight, making them unusable for the final portion of the trip.
The flight carrying 240 passengers was delayed close to two hours as staff checked out the problem, which turned out to be a false alarm, a glitch with the lavatory system.
But the July 3 incident highlighted a little-known fact about modern passenger jets: the waste is not jettisoned from on high — threatening those on the ground with falling, frozen feces — but kept as extra baggage.
“Any excrements from aircraft are treated very particularly,” Peter Fitzpatrick said. “It’s strictly controlled, because people are coming from other countries and so forth.”
That said, incidents persist of so-called “blue-ice” — sewage and antiseptic blue fluid that has frozen in the frigid high-altitude air — plummeting to earth, usually attributed to an accidental leak from one of the tanks.
Just last year, an Ottawa-area woman reported that a chunk of frozen waste tore a hole through the roof of her mother’s house.
As for the aircraft, the alternative to making an unplanned landing can be nightmarish. McNair pointed to an Air India flight earlier this year that began its 16-hour journey from New Delhi to Chicago with four toilets shut down, the remaining eight reaching capacity with two hours still left in the flight.
OOOOH, There’s a flight you dont want to be on when the shitters are full. Air India Flight with two hours left in the journey. I had some delicious paneer and butter chicken last night and today my bowel movement resembled roadkill.
Next to crashing, not having working bathrooms on a flight is another excellent reason to hate flying. Can you imagine having to hold in a mondo Duke for two hours with nowhere to deposit it? Or the painful jabs in your abdomen holding that pee in knowing the only relief you’ll get is if you piss your seat.
And if you’re mad about my Air India comment you can stuff it. Peter Fitzpatrick from Air Canada pointed it out, Not me.
As you were.
