There are a few things in life that make me stop and wonder how on earth that happened in the first place ?
PK( PIA) 798 from Lahore , Pakistan to Toronto,Canada had to be diverted to Manchester, United Kingdom on Saturday due to a large objectNot what your thinking ;) got stuck in the toilet piping system onboard the aircraft causing all toilets to become out of order ?!
Article by one of my favourite mileage runners below-
This is extremely strange in my opinion. Both that someone would think it is a smart idea to throw something solid in a suction toilet, and the way the system was designed in the first place.
This would actually be a fairly good way to purposely divert a flight. (Not sure why you would ever want to do that, don’t get any ideas, please.)
Well, humans generate both solid and liquid waste, so the system is built for solid waste, but perhaps not at the size of the item clogging it. The system is designed for weight savings, 8 bathrooms on a plane and having dedicated tubes leading to the septic tank would be catastrophic for both weight and plumbing complexity especially in the cramped confines of a plane’s underbelly.
That is very true. But if I were to build a plane, I would definitely have at least two separate systems to prevent this type of thing. Then again that may be why I’m not an Aerospace Engineer.
Airbus had issues when EK walked up and asked them to work out how to do a shower, so 8 different drainage pipes might be more of an issue. Passing pipes through the wing box is a particular pain in the rear because there is only so much space you can have until the boffins throw their hands in the air and collectively quit because the wing wouldn’t be strong enough.