Spate of mysterious toilet blockages hits Cathay Pacific, forcing one flight to make an unscheduled landing

The fleet of Airbus planes of Cathay Pacific, the flag-carrier airline of Hong Kong, has been hit by a series of toilet blockages.

The problem has been so severe that one packed flight from Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia, to Hong Kong had to make an unscheduled landing in Mumbai, in India, after it was found that none of the aircraft’s 10 toilets was functioning.

Cathay Pacific said that toilets of Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft have been blocked in 3 separate incidents in the last 11 days.

The first of these was on November 17, 2009, when the flight from Riyadh to Hong Kong, with 278 passengers on board, was forced to divert to Mumbai and land there, after flight attendants detected, soon after takeoff, that all 10 toilets of the plane had been blocked.

The forced diversion of the flight to Mumbai caused a delay of 18 hours. The Riyadh-Hong Kong flight normally takes 8 hours.

The two other toilet blockages happened on the Cathay Pacific flights from Rome to Hong Kong (on November 9, 2009) and from Dubai to Hong Kong (on November 19, 2009).

On both the Rome-Hong Kong and Dubai-Hong Kong flights, the number of passengers had to be limited to less than 240 after it was found before takeoff that only toilets on one side of the Airbus aircraft were working. These two flights could continue the journey to their respective destinations since the blocked toilets happened to be only on one side of the plane.

Carolyn Leung, spokeswoman of Cathay Pacific, said the “exact cause” of the toilets getting blocked on the airline’s Airbus planes still remained unclear, adding that a part of the blame could go to passengers.

Objects such as medicine bottles, items of clothing, face-towels, socks, and children’s stuffed toys have been detected in the pipes of the toilet system during cleaning, according to Carolyn Leung.

Cathay Pacific said in a statement that it has already consulted Airbus Industrie about the problem of toilet blockages and that new pipes are now being fitted and deep-cleaning treatment being done on toilets.

Toilets in aircraft use high-speed pipes, which carry waste at speeds of up to 110 kilometres (68 miles) per hour. This waste is emptied between flights.

Since 2 vacuum systems operate separately on each side of the aircraft, a blockage in one toilet usually affects all the toilets on one side of the plane.

According to the internal guidelines of Cathay Pacific, the minimum toilet-to-passenger ratio in the economy-class should be 1:80.

Cathay Pacific said it has offered compensation to the passengers affected by the blocked toilets and that Airbus Industrie is investigating the cause of the spate of toilet blockages.