I’ve been on my fair share of flights with one or two toilets being inoperable. However, that doesn’t even begin to compare to what happened to last Friday’s Pakistan International Airlines flight from Toronto to Lahore, which was operated by a Boeing 777-200.
The flight had to divert to Manchester because all of the plane’s toilets became blocked — ouch! Here’s the note posted by PIA’s spokesperson regarding the flight:
PIA's Toronto-Lahore flight PK-798 has been diverted to Manchester as its toilets got choked, due to something solid thrown by passengers. pic.twitter.com/GfqV8SoLSL
— Danyal Gilani (@DanyalGilani) November 19, 2016
In the end the flight landed in Lahore about five hours late, though I guess they had no other option.
I actually wasn’t aware that this could happen to a 777, that one toilet getting choked up could lead to the same thing happening to all of them. Since that’s the case, I’m sort of surprised this doesn’t happen more often.
What a story. It certainly makes my Pakistan Airlines flight from Manchester to New York a few months back look uneventful by comparison.
(Tip of the hat to Geoffrey)
How do people not understand that if it doesn't come out of your body and if it's not toilet paper, then it doesn't belong in the toilet? Maybe there is a need to include this vital information in the pre-flight announcements?
The comments from the airline seem to indicate that this failure was caused by passenger abuse.
I'm not familiar with the 777, but I know on the widebody Airbus aircraft, usually the right and left side lavs are on separate systems, with a pump system to redistribute the waste between sides for weight/capacity issues if need be.
I forget which aircraft it was, but my parents were on a DL flight in September...
The comments from the airline seem to indicate that this failure was caused by passenger abuse.
I'm not familiar with the 777, but I know on the widebody Airbus aircraft, usually the right and left side lavs are on separate systems, with a pump system to redistribute the waste between sides for weight/capacity issues if need be.
I forget which aircraft it was, but my parents were on a DL flight in September or October where the lavs became inoperable mid-flight. It was a <3 hr flight so the flight just continued, but I would have hated being a pax with GI issues or a bad case of the after effects Taco Tuesdays on that plane.
Luckycoins, I don't want to accuse you of resting on your laurels but if there was a post worthy of a more pithy headline this was it.
"Manchester cleans Pakistanis toilets"
"Diaper forces down Pakistani jet"
"Boeing jet unable to handle Pakistani loads"
etc....
Boeing generally seems to have trouble with this. Especially the 747-8 is often causing trouble with the toilets.
a big dirty diaper or "depends" could do it
This actually happened to me on an Air Canada flight, interestingly enough from Toronto as well headed to Athens. A few hours in and the toilets start going out one by one. Eventually they were all blocked (but that didn't stop some people from using them). We had to emergency land in LHR where they discovered somebody had flushed a baby diaper, clogging the entire system. Interesting experience - also a 777.
Rather crap situation for being late, How big does a solid object need to be in order to block the main sewage system on a 777?