Borked bog forces flight carrying 83 plumbers to bug out back to base

A Norwegian airline flight carrying scores of plumbers was forced to make an unplanned break because of a persistent problem with the onboard water closet. The Munich-bound Boeing 737-800 left Oslo Gardermoen on Saturday morning but the plane returned to the airport north of Norway's capital to fix the malfunctioning loo. The …

[frank ly]

"... we did not take the risk to send a plumber [out] at 10,000 metres."

There were 84 of them. They could have all pulled together and formed a human chain.

[Korev]

That would have been a shock to the cistern

[Anonymous Coward]

If they got it wrong they would be in the shit.

[Rameses Niblick the Third Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops Where's My Thribble?]

Turdbulence?

I be the in-flight movie was a bit shit.

Bound to cause a stink among the passengers.

[Finder Keeper]

I'm trying to block the temptation to pipe in on this... er... thread. Really trying!

[John Brown (no body)]

"I'm trying to block the temptation to pipe in on this... er... thread. Really trying!"

Don't strain yourself.

[Blank-Reg]

No-one else will give a crap. So good to see you take the plunge.

[MyffyW]

84 multiplied by a call-out charge + parts and labour? Cheaper to return to the airport, dump the fuel, torch the aircraft and claim on the insurance.

[Korev]

Those plumbers would have been flush with cash....

[Anonymous Coward]

84 plumbers

think of the call-out costs !

[Locky]

83 Plumbers

The collective sound of "What cowboy put that in? I've not got that part on my van, here's my call out charge invoice" must have been deafening

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Re: 83 Plumbers

I would have thought the windows would have imploded first after the collective intake of breath in preparation for the inevitable 'it's gonna cost ya'.

[hammarbtyp]

Re: 83 Plumbers

Is that an air leak I'm hearing or 83 plumbers going "ssssss, that'll cost you, can't get the parts anymore guv"

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 83 Plumbers

"They don't make them like that anymore, it will need a whole new unit if I cannot find that exact replacement part at the local store..."

[Anonymous Coward]

83 plumbers on one flight?

Is that a statistical anomaly or a very popular plumbers' stag do?

[Dave K]

83 plumbers on a flight with no working loo? Sounds like a piss-up to me!

[Anonymous Coward]

83 Norwegian plumbers on a flight with no working loo? Sounds like a piss-up to me!

My experience of Norwegians plus cheaper booze than at home says you are probably more accurate than you think.

[BugabooSue]

Mario would have worked on the outside of the plane...

...Oh, wait.., what..?!!

He’s no longer a plumber?!!!

[Salestard]

"... we did not take the risk to send a plumber [out] at 10,000 metres."

The actual risk being that having sucked their teeth, made the leak worse with a set of mole grips, and rummaged about in the back of the van for ten minutes, all 84 of them then vanish off 'down the plumber's merchants' for several days.

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

" vanish off 'down the plumber's merchants' for several days."

Or 'the other job they've got on' as we prefer to observe.

[kain preacher]

"... we did not take the risk to send a plumber [out] at 10,000 metres."

Not at those prices

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Brilliant

Irony indeed. However even if the bog could have been fixed from inside the aircraft, given modern airline security none of the plumbers' tool bags would have been allowed as carry-on luggage, I would think.

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Re: Brilliant

Considering how they seem to always 'fix' things with a hammer I would have thought any sturdy implement would suffice as a viable alternative :P

[SminkyBazzA]

How many plumbers?

Was the problem something to do with how the number of plumbers varied during the flight? Perhaps two plumbers were lost to the vacuum flush when trying to fix it from the inside.

[Anonymous South African Coward]

83 plumbers on a plane

one fell down the bog

82 plumbers on a plane

one fell down the bog

81 plumbers on a plane

...

...

...

...

[Ian Bush]

"The airline's comms handler confirmed the U-turn in a statement sent to The Register."

Shouldn't that read U-bend?

[Rainman]

I recon the plumbers were amazed at how efficient the airplane bog suction was, and probably tested it out with whatever came to hand.

This actually happened a while ago on a long distance flight from India to Germany, which had to do a U-turn shortly after take-off. On inspection they found that passengers had even attempted to flush blankets and pillows and had caused all the bogs to go TITSUP - "Total Inability To Suck Up Poop".

[Anonymous Coward]

83 plugs and clog plane toilet. The jokes just write them selves.

Now which one of them dropped the loaf the clog the toilet ?

[Anonymous Coward]

--The jokes just write them selves

Shame you didn't wait for one to do so then

[Anonymous Coward]

Boo boo.

[Anonymous Coward]

"We would like to thank passengers for their patience and would like to apologise for the inconvenience."

Tongue firmly in cheek? Sounds like a Carry On film.

[Commswonk]

ERRATUM

We would like to thank passengers for their patience and would like to apologise for the inconvenience

should have read

We would like to thank passengers for their patience and would like to apologise for the lack of convenience.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "dump fuel so it was not too heavy to land."

Too right, this one did not even have a "take a dump" facility. ;)

[Alistair]

Re: "dump fuel so it was not too heavy to land."

I was about to comment -- since if one looks at the radar map, that loop was done *quite* a few times. ISTR an MD80 burning about 2.5 or so hours fuel just off the lake about 2 years ago on an aborted flight hereabouts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "dump fuel so it was not too heavy to land."

Given that the flight time from Oslo to Munich only looks to be 2h15, if they had to mess about burning fuel it would seem possible that they spent so long in the air that the flight crew might as well have continued and had it fixed at Munich.

[earl grey]

Did you say they left from Stoolbend?

Or did they return?

[Doctor Syntax]

What's the collective noun for 83 plumbers? A blockage?

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

A leak of plumbers?

[ukgnome]

to the airline

Slow hand crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder if they could have fixed it anyway

I have a feeling those airline toilets operate quite a bit differently than what they're used to, and trying to fix something when you don't know how it works could lead to ...interesting... results if they accidentally reversed the vacuum flow and turned "flush" into "eject"!

[Jonathan Schwatrz]

Love it!

"The Morissette meter! It's off the scale!"

[Updraft102]

Re: Love it!

There weren't any examples of irony in the song; it was not just the black fly. The only ironic part about it is as you mentioned... that it is a song about irony that contains many examples of annoyance or coincidence, none of which are ironic. I've often wondered whether Ms. Morissette intended that bit, or whether she (like everyone who now uses that song as a reference for irony) simply had no idea what the word really means. It's like trying to determine if someone in a forum is a troll or just an idiot.

[lglethal]

The Laws of Irony

The only time I've ever been on a plane which has had to turn back mid flight, my boss, myself and four colleagues were flying out to Spain for a design meeting on an aircraft engine anti-icing system. Naturally the reason for the turn back - a failure of the engine anti-icing system.

You can pretty much guarantee that anytime a large number of people involved in X are riding on something utilising X, X well fail at the most inconvenient time possible...

[veti]

Proportionality

The detail I like in this story is that, apparently, it was cheaper to replace the whole plane than it would have been just to fix (or replace) the malfunctioning khazi.

[gregthecanuck]

Dear passengers

"We apologise for the incontinence" ....

[Locky]

In flight movie

Shits on a plane