American Airlines Flight Diverted for Broken Bathrooms

Image: PHOTO: Toilet on board. (Photo via VVF / iStock / Getty Images Plus)
Image: PHOTO: Toilet on board. (Photo via VVF / iStock / Getty Images Plus)
Patrick Clarke
by Patrick Clarke
Last updated: 10:01 AM ET, Tue March 19, 2019

An American Airlines flight traveling from San Francisco to New York City was forced to divert to Chicago after its lavatories reportedly became inoperative on Monday afternoon.

According to flight-tracking website Flightradar24, the cross-country flight departed the Bay Area shortly after 11 a.m. ET and was scheduled to arrive on the East Coast around 4:30 p.m. ET.

The 74 passengers waited for approximately 45 minutes in Chicago as workers put the bathrooms back in service.

"We never want to disrupt our customers' travel plans, and we are sorry for the trouble this diversion has caused the 74 passengers on this flight," American Airlines said in a statement.

This certainly isn't the first time travelers have been impeded by toilet troubles. Last year, a Hawaii-bound United Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing after its bathroom reached capacity.

More recently, a broken toilet caused a Delta Air Lines flight carrying Bravo TV host Andy Cohen to turn around over the Atlantic Ocean while a lavatory leak on a United Airlines flight left a Colorado service member with a wet, stinky bag last fall.


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Patrick Clarke

Patrick Clarke

Senior Editor

A Maryland native and wanderer who has lived across the U.S. from North Carolina to SoCal, Patrick Clarke graduated from Towson University with a B.S. in journalism. He previously worked for Bleacher

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