Clogged Toilets Cause 10-Hour Air India Flight To Nowhere

Some passengers on a recent long haul Air India flight were in for a pretty crappy time, after their flight had to divert over clogged toilets. By all accounts, it sounds like the carrier’s handling of this situation was not impressive.

Air India 777 returns to Chicago over clogged toilets

This incident happened on March 5, 2025, and involves Air India flight AI126, scheduled to operate from Chicago (ORD) to Delhi (DEL). The flight was operated by a 15-year-old Boeing 777-300ER with the registration code VT-ALQ.

The flight took off from O’Hare Airport on schedule, at 11:24AM, and began its roughly 14-hour journey to India. The jet flew out over Canada, the Labrador Sea, and Greenland, and then continued its Atlantic crossing. However, over four hours after departure, the jet made a 180-degree turn, and headed back toward Chicago.

That was quite a long journey, and the plane ended up landing there at 9:08PM, after a flight time of 9hr44min. That’s right, the plane flew for nearly 10 hours, only to end up back where it started. So, what was the reason the plane returned to its origin? According to the airline, it was due to “technical reasons.”

However, according to passengers, it was because the toilets onboard were clogged, and by the time the plane was passing Greenland, only one of the aircraft’s 12 toilets was working.

That’s a rough reason for a diversion, and one certainly wonders why returning to the origin was the best option in this case, especially since it required roughly five hours of backtracking. Wouldn’t it have made sense to divert to a closer airport still on the way to India, rather than returning to an outstation? Or was the concern that the crew would time out at that point, and then passengers would be stranded in a foreign country?

My first thought is that it seems like it could’ve made sense to divert to London, which is a big station for Air India, and has plenty of flights that passengers could be rebooked on. However, the plane would’ve arrived while the airport’s curfew is in effect.

For what it’s worth, the aircraft ended up remaining on the ground in Chicago until 2PM on March 7, so it took nearly two days until the plane could reenter service.

Air India seems to have handled this situation horribly

In a statement, Air India claims the following:

“Upon landing at Chicago, all passengers and crew disembarked normally and have been provided with accommodation to minimise inconvenience. Alternative arrangements are being made to fly the passengers to their destination.”

However, an OMAAT reader’s cousin was on this flight, and shares a different version of events. When the plane landed back in Chicago, there were reportedly only two Air India employees to meet the plane, which had roughly 300 passengers. Passengers were given a piece of paper (which I was sent a picture of), informing them to call customer service for rebooking options.

However, it was clear that customer service representatives hadn’t been briefed on what had happened, so they had no alternatives to offer. I can’t vouch for this, but the traveler claims that the situation was so bad that Delta employees volunteered to help the two Air India staff out of empathy, given the number of stranded passengers.

As Air India tries to reinvent itself, it sure seems like providing basic levels of customer service is still more of a struggle than it should be.

Bottom line

Air India passengers traveling from Chicago to Delhi were in for an unpleasant journey, as the plane ended up returning to its origin after nearly 10 hours due to clogged toilets. Sometimes things go wrong, though it sounds like Air India didn’t do a great job handling this situation.

What do you make of this Air India toilet diversion?