New Delhi: Incidents of aircraft waste falling from sky have been reported from several places in India and abroad. However, the matter reached the NGT's door in October 2016 when a Delhi resident, Lt Gen (retd) Satwant Singh Dahiya, filed a case alleging that faeces was splattered from aircraft on his South Delhi house. Even as the matter is sub judice, people wonder if incidents on poop droppings actually happen? We looked into the stinky matter and spoke to aviation experts to dig out the facts.
Explaining the mechanism, Mark D Martin, an aviation technical specialist and CEO of Martin Consulting, said, "In modern aircraft, waste onboard is treated with additives and is stored in an isolated tank away from fuel, hydrologic, pneumatic and air-conditioning lines. On-board systems make it impossible to open the aircraft waste shaft unless it is on ground and the lavatory truck is physically connected to the aircraft."
Martin further said, "In the 1970s, sewer waste lines were not adequately sealed and resulted in waste leakage, which used to break away mid-flight. In modern aircraft, there's no way that a pilot or maintenance crew can open an aircraft waste line unless it has its engines turned off and parked."
Older generation planes over 30 years back used to dump waste, that too occasionally. Those planes used a different electric system and flushed their toilet using a blue chemical disinfectant. The blue liquid was known as 'Skykem' and it was prone to leaking. The waste would leak through faulty valves, freeze on the outside of the aircraft and fall off as it descended to warmer air.
The current vacuum toilet system in planes, designed by James Kemper in 1974, was first installed in a Boeing in 1982. In a plane toilet, strong suction and teflon-like walls pull excreta away using a small quantity of water. As you press the flush button, the vacuum at the bottom of the bowl sucks the waste into a holding tank. The waste is sucked into a tanker at the airport and then dumped. Even if the pilot and flight attendants want to empty a tank midflight, it is not possible as the valve is located on the outside of the plane, and can be only opened by the ground crew.
06/09/18 Neha Chandra/India Today
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Explaining the mechanism, Mark D Martin, an aviation technical specialist and CEO of Martin Consulting, said, "In modern aircraft, waste onboard is treated with additives and is stored in an isolated tank away from fuel, hydrologic, pneumatic and air-conditioning lines. On-board systems make it impossible to open the aircraft waste shaft unless it is on ground and the lavatory truck is physically connected to the aircraft."
Martin further said, "In the 1970s, sewer waste lines were not adequately sealed and resulted in waste leakage, which used to break away mid-flight. In modern aircraft, there's no way that a pilot or maintenance crew can open an aircraft waste line unless it has its engines turned off and parked."
Older generation planes over 30 years back used to dump waste, that too occasionally. Those planes used a different electric system and flushed their toilet using a blue chemical disinfectant. The blue liquid was known as 'Skykem' and it was prone to leaking. The waste would leak through faulty valves, freeze on the outside of the aircraft and fall off as it descended to warmer air.
The current vacuum toilet system in planes, designed by James Kemper in 1974, was first installed in a Boeing in 1982. In a plane toilet, strong suction and teflon-like walls pull excreta away using a small quantity of water. As you press the flush button, the vacuum at the bottom of the bowl sucks the waste into a holding tank. The waste is sucked into a tanker at the airport and then dumped. Even if the pilot and flight attendants want to empty a tank midflight, it is not possible as the valve is located on the outside of the plane, and can be only opened by the ground crew.
06/09/18 Neha Chandra/India Today
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