Though we often fear making a fool of ourselves in security or straying embarrassingly into the wrong boarding group, we don’t expect our actions to cause the whole flight to be re-routed. Unfortunately that was the case for one anonymous traveller, who managed to clog the toilet of a SWISS flight so badly the plane had to fly back to Zurich.

SWISS flight heads back to Zurich thanks to a clogged toilet

According to a statement from SWISS, our story starts at 1.30pm on March 16 when LX72 took off from Zurich on its way to Washington D.C.. It wasn’t long before the seat belt sign was off, people were able to move around the cabin and, crucially, use the bathroom.

Unfortunately, as the plane was passing over France, cabin crew discovered that someone had blocked one of the toilets so badly that all the bathrooms on the left-hand side of the plane were taken out of action. With around seven hours of flight time remaining and faced with the prospect of cross-legged passengers and endless queues to the few bathrooms left standing, the cabin crew decided to turn the plane around and head back to Zurich.

Toilet clogger remains unidentified

After just two hours in the air, the plane landed back at the Swiss airport at around 3pm. The 220 passengers then disembarked and waited for a replacement plane to be found. Luckily, a backup was found and the service landed in the US capital five hours late, at 10pm local time.

In a statement, SWISS said they regretted the strange incident. "Such a delay is naturally very frustrating for our passengers, and we would like to apologise again for the inconvenience," they added. The culprit responsible for taking out the toilet remains unknown.

Thumb image credit: Robert Buchel / Shutterstock.com