Airliner diverts flight over full toilet tanks

When an airliner has to land, it has to land.

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.

Sensors indicated all of the Boeing 767’s toilets were full on 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 was a false alarm, a glitch with the lavatory system.

But the July 3 incident highlighted a little-known fact about passenger jets: the waste is not jettisoned from on high — threatening those on the ground with falling, frozen feces — but kept as extra baggage.

Still, having to divert a plane because the toilet tanks appeared full is highly unusual, said Peter Fitzgerald, a spokesman for Air Canada.

The flight declared a “Pan pan” — indicating there is an urgent situation but no immediate danger — when the full-toilets indicator lit up, then landed at nearby Montreal, according to the Aviation Herald website.

Workers there carried out a “quick fix” on the mechanical problem that triggered the indicator, Fitzgerald said. It took another 18 hours of maintenance in Toronto to fully repair it, he said.