Sorry if this was asked before and I was just too lazy to look it up, but I was wondering what happens when you flush the toilet on the airplane?
Does it suck it into a tank or do they release it over the ocean? I have heard both, so Im not sure what to believe.
If they do release it into the air, what happens to it? Has there ever been an account of an especially large chunk o’ poo hardening and causing distruction? Ha ha.
Thanks!
The waste from airplane lavatories is held in a holding tank. This is emptied each time the plane is serviced. This is known as blue water even though in newer aircraft the water is not blue. Gray water, the waste from the wash basin and galley sinks (known as gray water) is released while the airplane is flying through drain masts located on the bottom of the airplane fuselage. I work for Boeing and have performed the functional testing of both systems. On the older model 737’s we even flushed plastic turds down the toilets and would retreive them from airplane’s lav service panel.
Yes, frozen waste has come crashing down on some folks. I worked with a guy that had a 30 pound chunk of blue ice come throught the roof of his house. It came from an older 727 that was being flown into an aircraft service facility in Everett, Washington for service. The chunk of ice formed at altitude and broke free as the airplane descended for landing. He lived only a few miles from Payne Field, the destination of the airplane, which also happens to be next to the Everett Boeing Plant.