Polythene bags, clothes clogged toilets: Air India after flight returns to US
The aircraft cited its internal investigation based on objects found by maintenance crews who discovered the objects in the aircraft’s plumbing system
New Delhi:
Air India on Monday confirmed that flight AI126 from Chicago to Delhi on March 5 was forced to return to its departure point because multiple lavatories on the Boeing 777 jet became unusable and said that the problem was caused became people flushed down “polythene bags, rags, and clothes”.
The aircraft cited its internal investigation based on objects found by maintenance crews who discovered the objects in the aircraft’s plumbing system, and appeared to pin the blame on flyers by urging “passengers to use lavatories only for the purposes they are meant for”.
Experts, however, said the disclosure gives rise to more questions.
“About an hour and forty-five minutes into the flight, the crew reported some of the lavatories in Business and Economy Class to be unserviceable,” the Air India spokesperson said in a statement on Monday. By the time the aircraft was over the Atlantic Ocean, two-thirds of the toilets had become unusable, “causing discomfort to all on board.”
The airline had initially described the issue as a “technical” problem in its earlier statement on Thursday, but provided more specific details following social media attention on Monday. The original incident, including the clogged lavatories having been the trigger for the diversion, was reported by HT on Friday.
Flight AI126 departed Chicago O’Hare International Airport on time at 11am local time on Wednesday (16:48 UTC, 22:18 IST). According to flight tracking website Flightradar24, the plane turned around approximately four hours and 25 minutes after departure, just after crossing the Greenland coast.
While European airports were considered as potential diversion points, Air India explained that “due to restrictions on night operations at most European airports, it was decided to divert back to Chicago.” The aircraft landed back at O’Hare at around 9pm local time.
“The decision to divert was taken entirely in the interest of passenger comfort and safety,” the airline emphasised in its statement. Upon landing, passengers were provided with accommodation and alternative flight arrangements. The airline has offered “full refunds on cancellation and complimentary rescheduling” to affected travellers.
Air India also noted that while not found on this particular flight, its maintenance teams have previously discovered “blankets, innerwear, and diapers, among other waste” in aircraft toilet systems.
Aviation experts have questioned the airline’s explanation. Captain Mohan Ranganathan expressed scepticism about the extent of the problem: “In an ultra-long-haul flight, clogging of washrooms is not an uncommon scenario. Having said that, I have never heard of eight out of 12 washrooms being clogged in any flight and that too when the flight is hardly halfway,” he said.
Ranganathan specifically questioned the presence of blankets in the system, suggesting it might be due to “errors by the cleaners and not the passengers,” as “passengers don’t use blankets while going to the washroom” and blankets are typically “collected from the passengers and kept near washrooms” before landing.
Although in this instance, it appears Air India did not find blankets in this particular flight.
The Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft involved in the incident, identified by tail number VT-ALQ, has a capacity of 342 passengers, including 303 in economy class and 39 in business class. The aircraft utilizes a vacuum-based toilet system that pulls waste into a holding tank using minimal water and disinfecting chemicals, which is then emptied upon landing.