Posted on 03/09/2025 11:49:43 AM PDT by DFG
This was a crappy flight.
Passengers aboard an Air India flight to Delhi suffered a 10-hour trip to nowhere when the plane was forced to circle back to Chicago because all but one of its toilets allegedly became clogged and inoperable.
Air India Flight 126 was making its way over Greenland on March 5 when 11 out of its 12 toilets broke down, with the only working toilet located in the business class section for some 300 passengers to use, View From The Wing reported.
The extended pee-pee dance began nearly five hours into the 14 hour trip, according to the FlightAware tracker, forcing the airliner to head back to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
“Upon landing at Chicago, all passengers and crew disembarked normally and have been provided with accommodation to minimize inconvenience,” the company said in a statement, citing only a “technical issue.”
“Alternative arrangements are being made to fly the passengers to their destination,” the airliner added.
Air India said that it would offer refunds for the cancellation, but that was little relief to some customers — who claimed they were forced to jump through hoops to get their flights rescheduled or refunded.
One customer said they had booked a first class ticket for their cousin to fly for a wedding in India using their travel LifeMiles with the Avianca airliner.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
How do 11 out of 12 toilets break down? Sounds like Toilet Maintenance Dude skipped a day in training.
Per FR rules, I’m blaming it on a DEI hire until further notice.
Looking on the bright side, at least six of the four engines didn’t break down.
Well, how else can the airlines use every square inch for undersized seats, except by using too few mini toilets?
Since clogged toilets are a problem...one would think someone would design a way to unclog it in a sanitary way.
Or there should be a few porta potties stashed away on board.
Disgusting lack of foresight.
Maybe seal off the bowl above the clog and then open the system to outside pressure? You'd need some serious fail-safe measures so as not to depressurize the airplane, and it wouldn't be much fun for anyone on the ground who got hit by the dislodged material, but everything has risks.
The parts of airplane toilets visible to passengers are pretty simple. I have no idea what happens once the flapper valve at the bottom of the bowl opens and closes.
The simplest explanation would be that something clogged between the toilets on the passenger decks and the holding tank(s). On a large plane, however, it’s hard to believe that all the toilets were dependent on the same main pipe, although the way things work today, saving 100 pounds might push designers into doing that on the theory that it’s a failsafe system. Were they all ultimately draining through the same pipe prior to the tank(s), and why would one toilet remain operable?
This is FR, a great mecca of arcane knowledge. Clearly we need plumbing schematics of the plane in question, and we need them NOW!!!
Surely we have a Certified Airline Toilet Technician lurking here somewhere. Or at least someone who has done the same job on naval vessels, especially submarines, or spacecraft, because we all know airplanes, ships and spacecraft are all the same. Now is your time to shine!
Indian food smells so good, and always looks like what you described. Some of it tastes pretty good.
I'll take user error for my guess. It would have to be a pretty grave emergency for me to ever fly on Air India.
It would take a certified Poopasaurus to knock out 11 of 12 toilets via user error. Sounds like you have the makings of a pretty good dystopian comedy there.
I was thinking flushing a diaper in the toilet closest to the holding tank, blocking the line, and there was cascading failure up the pipe that hadn’t gotten to the business class toilet in the front of the plane -— yet.
12 toilets, Air India. No designated defecation aisle?
Wow. And I thought PeoplExpress’ 747 service during the 1980s on the EWR-LGW route was bad. (Fares were $149 one-way, which is $484 in today’s dollars. Toilets were non-working on their former Braniff 747s.)
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