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American 149 - Toilet Diversion

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citabriapilot

V Murdda...
Joined
Apr 13, 2004
Posts
361
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAL149/history/20090216/1411Z/KIAD/KLAX

Heard AA149 this morning asking for a divert to ORD for a toilet that was in a continuous "flush mode". Asked to hold to burn off gas, declared an emergency and still said they would land 20,000 pounds over weight. Wow.

Is there not a CB to shut off the toilet? Would that toilet just overflow and cause more problems? Just curious as to why that would cause a diversion... Was funny to hear an emergency declared for a toilet with a mind of its own. :)
 
fire hazard

A continuosly flushing lav is bad news, the whole flushing mechanism/motor can overheat and catch fire, as crazy as it sounds ive seen it first hand in the 727
 
That's what we figured. It was such a strange thing to hear so we perked up and listened to the whole thing pan out. We assumed it could cause a motor or whatever in the lav to burn up.
 
Many years ago I flew 135 Charter out of O'hare. We flew all the Chicago news crews at the time when a hot story broke. We got the call and launched 4 planes and all raced over to I believe it was either Columbus or Cincinnati. A DC-9 was there smoking on the runway and the top half of the airplane was gone. Seems the cause was a lav motor that stuck in the continuous on mode. Since these are short duty motors that need to cycle it didn't take long before it started on fire. From the time the Captain was notified and diverted and landed it was like 8 minutes total if I remember right. Doesn't take long. Better to be on the ground with nothing going on than in the air with a fire. Look at how fast Valuejet went into the everglades with a fire in the cargo hold.

Any fire is bad..........very bad! I always make a mental note and also jot down a quick reference in my jeps where the lav motor circuit breaker is located. Cause when you need it you wont find it quickly............Murphys law!

Also another good toilet diversion is when the ground pounders forget to empty the lav and you leave on a long flight. Usually half way across the country you get the call that the lavs are overflowing. Kinda embarrasing to divert for this but it does happen.
 

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