You’ve heard it said that loose lips sink ships, but today it appears that loose bowels sink airplanes. At least that is what happened on an ill-fated easyJet flight to London.
Loose Bowels Sink Airplanes: EasyJet Flight Cancelled After Lavatory Accident
An easyJet flight from Tenerife, Spain (TNF) to London Gatwick (LGW) never got off the ground on Sunday after a lavatory incident onboard made an already-delayed flight far worse.
An operational delay forced easyJet to send a rescue plane to the Spanish island. The new aircraft was smaller, forcing easyJet to solicit volunteers (for 500EUR cash) to stay behind. When the new flight finally boarded, a passenger rose to use the lavatory prior to takeoff…
…and defecated on the floor of the lavatory instead of in the toilet. It is not clear if the accident was malicious or not.
A flight attendant announced:
“It’s rather entertaining to defecate the front toilet so we’re now staying the night here. We’re now going to get everyone off and organize hotels. Then we’ll fly back tomorrow morning.”
But easyJet being easyJet was unable to find hotels in the area (it blamed “extremely high demand”) and instead offered to compensate passengers if they could find budget accommodations (“we ask that you look for accommodation which is about three stars or equivalent”).
Here’s what easyJet had to say about the incident:
“easyJet can confirm that flight EZY8054 from Tenerife to London Gatwick yesterday evening was initially delayed while some bags were offloaded to be carried on the next available flight for safety reasons, due to the aircraft being overweight.
‘The flight was subsequently delayed overnight due to the aircraft requiring additional cleaning. We provided hotel accommodation for all customers however as there was limited nearby hotel availability in the area we also advised any customers who booked their own that they will be reimbursed.
‘The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is easyJet’s highest priority and while this was outside of our control we would like to apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused.”
Nice.
CONCLUSION
If this was a deliberate prank, the perpetrator should have had to sit in it during the flight to London…but if this was an accident brought on by a flight already delayed 3.5 hours without proper communication from easyJet, I feel quite sorry for the passenger (and indeed all passengers onboard).
(H/T: View From The Wing)
Maybe the pilots didn’t want to use the dirty front lavatory? Closing one lavatory can be done with the flight still operating.
Even if it is dirty, men can still use it for #1 if a blanket or paper towel is used to over the floor.
You’re right, which leads me to think this must have been a very nasty accident (loose stool).
Sit in it as punishment? You may be free of your detested 8th Amendment in Spain, but you’re subject to Art. 4 of the Charter of Fundamental rights!
Thank you, counselor. 😉
Do you have any AA SWUs to spare?
I wish I could help! I just used up the last of my 2023 lot. I’ve had really good luck this year.
It just gets better and better.