United Airlines passengers thought they were heading for D.C. on Sunday night. Instead, they got a round-trip to nowhere thanks to one of the least glamorous problems in aviation: busted bathrooms.
Flight 331, a Boeing 767 loaded with folks bound for Dulles, lifted off from Paris Charles de Gaulle around 5 p.m. All seemed well until the plane hit the space between Scotland and Ireland and pulled an abrupt U-turn. No mechanical fire alarms, no midair drama—just toilets that refused to flush.
Yes, an eight-hour Atlantic flight was cut short by plumbing. A United spokesperson told Business Insider the aircraft “returned to address an issue with the lavatories,” which is corporate-speak for “the bathrooms quit.”
Two and a half hours after departing Paris, everyone found themselves right back at Charles de Gaulle, waiting for rebooking and silently cursing the fickle gods of airline maintenance. The unlucky jet sat grounded for about 25 hours before finally flying again, rolling into Washington around 9 p.m. Monday.
So to recap: passengers bought tickets for Paris-to-Washington, got a scenic detour over the North Atlantic, and ended up with the most expensive bathroom break of their lives.