While it might sound a tad ironic, a Norwegian plane, en route from Oslo to Munich in Germany, was forced to turn around after it was discovered that there was a problem with the plane’s toilets.

The irony was due to the fact that there were 85 plumbers on board the flight at the time. One might think that at least one of those trusty plumbers could fix the problem, but it turns out he would have had to go outside the plane to fix the problem, not a safe feat at some 10,000 meters up in the air.

Flight turned back due to toilet trouble

As reported by the Independent, Norwegian Flight DY1156 departed from Oslo Gardermoen Airport on January 27 at 9:34 a.m., en route for Munich.

However, they only got to the Swedish border before having to turn the Boeing 737 aircraft around. The plane then had to circle four times overhead to expel excess fuel before landing back at the airport in Oslo.

85 plumbers on the plane but no toilet repair possible

Fatima Elkadi, the communications advisor for Norwegian, told the Norwegian news site Dagbladet that the flight had to be aborted due to a problem with the aircraft’s toilets. However, it turned out 85 plumbers, many of them employed by the Rørkjøp plumbing company in Norway, were on board at the time.

Frank Olsen, the company’s CEO was traveling with the plumbers and said he would like to have a go at fixing the problem, but was thwarted by the fact that repairs would need to be done from outside the plane. Olsen said they didn’t like the idea of sending one of their plumbers out to work at 10,000 meters. He did add that despite the broken toilets, there was generally a good atmosphere on board the flight.

Hans Christian Ødegård, employed by the plumbing company Ulstein, remarked on how much good humor was involved, with so many plumbers on a flight, but no one able to fix the toilet problem.

Flight delayed by three hours but toilets were fixed

According to Norwegian’s spokesperson, once back at the Oslo Gardermoen Airport, technicians soon fixed the toilet problems and the flight took off again and arrived in Munich at 12 p.m., around three hours late.

The spokesperson went on to thank passengers for their patience and to apologize for any inconvenience caused.

As reported by the Telegraph, toilet troubles on aircraft are nothing new. They mentioned a situation on a British Airways flight in March 2015, when the plane had to turn back to Heathrow due to what they termed a “smelly poo.” The flight had been destined for Dubai.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED