Airplane bathrooms can be disgusting. But I had never heard of a plane diverting due to someone stinking up the lavatory until today. If this article from the Daily Mail is to believed, this week a British Airways flight from London to Dubai had to turn back because of a terrible smell coming from the toilet.
Upon landing back in London, a politician on the flight tweeted the following:
Insane! Our BA flight to Dubai returned back to Heathrow because of a smelly poo in the toilet! 15hrs until next flight… #britishairways
— Abhishek Sachdev (@CllrAbhiSach) March 12, 2015
Apparently what was supposed to be a brief delay turned into having to wait until the next day for a replacement flight.
I’m assuming that there was something wrong with the toilet, and not just a bad smell. On a flight to Vegas, I was stuck in a middle seat in the very last row (my original flight was delayed and I snagged a seat on another flight that was about to take off), right next to the lavatory. At one point during the flight one of the flight attendants put a pack of coffee grounds in the lavatory. She explained it was a trick she learned to cover up/reduce odors. During my first mileage run I discovered a tea bag hanging in the lavatory; either someone was drinking tea in their or it was to cover up smells.
I can’t post about airplane bathrooms without posting this stand up routine from Jerry Seinfeld: