Airplane toilets can clog for a variety of reasons. Sometimes one lavatory will be taken out of service, sometimes multiple lavatories will have issues, and sometimes this even leads to diversions. However, a recent Philippine Airlines flight sounds absolutely disastrous, with all toilets malfunctioning, and the crew taking “matter(s)” into their own hands (literally).
In this post:
All Philippine Airlines 777 lavatories break on long haul flight
InsiderPH has the story of an incident that reportedly occurred on Philippine Airlines flight PR113 last week, from Los Angeles (LAX) to Manila (MNL). The roughly 15-hour flight was operated by a Boeing 777-300ER.
At some point while over the Pacific, all 11 lavatories on the aircraft began to malfunction, became clogged, and would no longer flush. At that point the flight was far from any land, with the closest practical diversion point, Guam (GUM), still being hours away. Ultimately, the captain and operations team reportedly decided to continue the flight, which was a disaster for the crew, as you’d expect.
Crew members were reportedly instructed by the supervisor to manually scoop human waste out of the toilets, and dispose of it in the adjacent sinks, to avoid the toilets overflowing, and so that they could continue to be used.
While airlines have procedures in place for just about any scenario, no airline protocols support this kind of a process, rather than diverting the aircraft. Obviously having flight attendant scoop waste out of the toilet raises serious concerns about sanitation, safety, and more.
Below is a video that was reportedly taken on the flight, and viewer discretion is advised!
Flight attendants are angry about how this played out
Interestingly, the outrage here doesn’t seem to be from passengers, but instead, from the union representing flight attendants, which views this as an operational and leadership meltdown. According to the report:
- The crew was angry that the flight wasn’t diverted, as seemingly profits and punctuality were valued over the wellbeing of passengers and crew
- The crew blames the captain for his decision not to divert, and the supervisor for allowing the situation to happen without it being escalated
- Apparently no further investigation was performed into the incident after the fact by management, which is concerning to the crew, and makes them think it’s more likely that this will be repeated
Bottom line
While it’s not uncommon for some lavatories on an aircraft to malfunction, a Philippine Airlines Boeing 777 reportedly had all lavatories malfunction on a recent flight while over the Pacific. The decision was made not to divert, and as a result, the crew ended up shoveling human waste out of the toilets, to avoid them from overflowing.
This has to be one of the worst aircraft lavatory stories I’ve heard of, and I feel horribly for the crew (well, and passengers).
What do you make of this Philippine Airlines lavatory situation?
This is very disgusting it show lack of good maintenance 777 aircraft all lavatory malfunction,another philippine airline disaster
aboslutely disgusting. i only took one longhaul via pal to toronto. i only take pal now for domestic flight and hopefully this disaster does not repeat on dometic flights
I have flown on this airline for the past 4 years and every flight over and back has had problems. I'm done with PAL.
This incident highlights a serious failure in aircraft maintenance and
sanitation. An airline of this age and scale clearly needs a comprehensive overhaul—not only of its physical infrastructure but also of its plumbing
systems. Expecting cabin crew to manually handle human waste is unacceptable, unsafe, and deeply unsanitary.
We had a similar "crappy" situation on UA 190 from Manila to San Francisco on 22 Dec 2025. On our 773, the waste indicators seemed to malfunction and thus indicated that the waste tanks were full of waste when they really were not, (at least yet). However, the lavs started to shut down one by one. Our pilots, along with maintenance dispatch, decided, out of an "abundance of caution", to divert to HNL. We landed...
We had a similar "crappy" situation on UA 190 from Manila to San Francisco on 22 Dec 2025. On our 773, the waste indicators seemed to malfunction and thus indicated that the waste tanks were full of waste when they really were not, (at least yet). However, the lavs started to shut down one by one. Our pilots, along with maintenance dispatch, decided, out of an "abundance of caution", to divert to HNL. We landed there around 0230. The Capt said that there is always a very small chance when one thing goes wrong, it could lead to something else going wrong and the Pacific is a big ocean! Hotel/meal/Lyft vouchers were given to all pax and we reported back at HNL for a 1230PM continuation to SFO, arriving about 13 hours late with a new crew who deadheaded in from SFO to pick us up. Nobody should have to do what the PH FAs were instructed to "carry out." Unsafe at so many levels! Aloha!
This is outrageous!
"Dispose of it in the adjacent sinks."
Um, ex-squeeze me? I need to know the logistics of how to dispose of solid waste in a sink.
Who said it was solid?
Regardless, just shove real hard. Get Tim "Tom" "TinyD" "The Dunce" DoubleDeuce Dunn to explain it - he is a master of "poop" AKA nonzense
Rod
What’s the saying? “If it’s a Boeing, you ain’t going.” Or something like that. Didn’t know it was about this specific scenario.
And we wonder why some FAs get so angry at passengers for seemingly small things
I'm with @Jj on this one. It's stomach-churning to read (but still better than actually being on that flight), but you learn a lot about PAL as an airline and what their (misplaced) priorities are. I was considering PAL for two flights this year, but now I won't.
Philippine Capt. said : "We ought to have kept the HNL stopover to service the lavs" ,
Eww. This is groser than an involuntary celibacy!?!
Suppose I should be flattered that I’ve got an imitator now. However shabby the imitation.
What if there were an announcement that men should urinate in bottles, women should urinate in certain lavatories, poop should be done in certain lavatories?
I once thought if I should connect at MNL but decided the potential trouble was not worth the passport stamp.
Philippines is still worth a visit; just take ANA there.
Depends on the connection. The airport will do another reshuffle where all the full-service international carriers will be at Terminal 3, while the international LCCs like Cebu, AirAsia, ZipAir, etc. will move to 1.
Just did a transfer at MNL from EVA to United. Changing terminals was a nightmare and took hours...
So going forward, a hard pass to connecting in MNL, let alone flying PAL.
I don't understand how people struggle to connect in Manila. I do it all the time and it's relatively painless....it can take 30 mins but definitely not hours. I've also rarely experienced lines at immigration and bags always come out quickly.
30 minutes changing terminals and taking the airside bus? Going through passport control twice? Good luck.
Cebu is great to transfer. It’s a very pleasant, modern and well organised airport . They even permit international- domestic transfers, with bags being checked to the final destination and a dedicated channel from terminal 2 to 1.
Imagine having diarrhea on this flight.
All these folks who clicked on an article which was exactly what you would expect from the headline, only to comment on how much they didn't like the article.
This is a health and safety issue and, while gross, I'm glad I read it. I wouldn't want to fly an airline that made this decision or forced their crews to do this. Diversions suck. Saying "I'd rather make people shovel literal shit than get stuck in Guam overnight" is really something.
Welcome to the internet...
Have a look around...
Anything that brain of yours can think of can be found...
Where’s that person who is unhealthily obsessed with PAL? lol
You're speaking of me? I have no comment as this is totally indefensible!
As disgusting as it may have been for the crew and/or passengers, honestly diversion over the pacific would have meant up to a 2 day delay getting replacement crews and aircraft in a location with limited accommodations.
As a passenger, this was the much more preferable outcome, putting up with the smell for an extra few hours.
Limited accomodations ? They were flying on a southern route, which means they can just divert to HNL or GUM, which have PLENTY of accomodations at either airports, this is more of they try to save money but nothing else
Yes you’d rather cut your vacation short for a couple days than smells someone’s s**t for a few hours. Some of us are a bit more resilient.
Also, why would they need up to 2 days delay getting replacement crew ? You know PR flies DAILY to both GUM and HNL right ? So there is no problems whatsoever if they need to divert to either airports. On top of that, they just get their first A350-1000 delivered weeks ago, that plane was just using for intra Asia flying mostly right now anyway
If I wanted this kind of story I would have read View from the Wing
If wanted such a poorly thought-out, moronic and imbecilic comment, I would have stared deep into my toilet bowl after dropping a dookie.
Speaking of a 'moronic and imbecilic comment'...
Meh... not bad, fake 1990... not... baaad...
--O.G. 1990
At least they go to enjoy a nice safety video
I read this post in the air on my way to MNL via HKG. Just a few hours ago, my partner and I laughed as we walked by the PAL plane and joked about some friends we have that would fly them to save $1.
This just exemplifies why PR is a hard pass for me. I don't care how nice their A350 is. I'll pick CX, JL or KE with a cx everytime...
I read this post in the air on my way to MNL via HKG. Just a few hours ago, my partner and I laughed as we walked by the PAL plane and joked about some friends we have that would fly them to save $1.
This just exemplifies why PR is a hard pass for me. I don't care how nice their A350 is. I'll pick CX, JL or KE with a cx everytime I fly to Manila and why I would never use them for my other SE Asia travels despite their pricing being significantly less for J then other carriers.
Too bad Tim "Tom Deuce" Delta only flies Delta. The Dunce's specialty is shitcollection and his support would have been very highly valuable under these circumstances! So true!
Stop! Get a new schtick, all of you Tim haters. Add some kind of value to the conversation, please. At least Tim says something of substance, even if you disagree. The rest of you just take pot shots thinking you are funny.
"The rest of you just take pot shots thinking you are funny."
I'd suggest the "pot shots" are really coping mechanisms, understandably so, for comment readers whose eyes are insulted every day by psychotic fanboy posts by a man with unrequited love for a company that actually hates him. The posts are sad, yes, but difficult for readers to have to see 20x/day.
I'm not here to defend Tim, simply civility in general. You don't like Tim's posts, then simply scroll on by. One coukd attempt to make a coherent thought out reply, but failing that, just let it go.
If seeing Tim's posts is amongst the difficult things in your life, then your life must be pretty good.
LOL.
There are people who thinks Tim says something of substance.
It's like eating shit without knowing you're eating shit.
What's the point of this? It contributes nothing to the conversation and really only reflects poorly on you.
I thought poop stories were Gary's beat....
Seriously Ben? You're better than this
And just to think, there was an article on here a few weeks ago on drinking tank water. Hah!
But could you imagine being served your meal and dessert immediately after?!
Wow I thought this would be about Air India.
Real Eskimo, or fake Eskimo?
"...and dispose of it in the adjacent sinks"
i am sorry, what.
You want them to put it in non-adjacent sinks?
That got a genuine LOL.
And I do have some (disgusting) logistics questions about how that would even work.