Quote:
Originally Posted by FlyChicaga  You have just completed boarding on the aircraft, and are finishing the last minute paperwork before departing on a red-eye flight. All passengers are on board, and the aircraft is full. While finishing initializing the FMS, a passenger comes up to the flight attendant and says that the only lavatory on board is "continuously flushing." You go back to check, and it is in fact running non-stop.
You are at an outstation, and it's five minutes to departure time. The flight will be about two and a half hours takeoff to touchdown, and contract maintenance will take a while to come out and just look at the problem, if they can even fix it. You can MEL the lavatory, but that means no toilet for the whole flight. While you are thinking, the gate agent keeps reminding you that half the aircraft is connecting to an international destination without a second flight for the day.
What do you do? |
If you contacted company/maintenance then your hands are tied you need to MEL the Lav. If this requires a (M) maintenance procedure you will need to wait for maintenance, if not then the flight crew can MEL and placard the LAV inoperative themselves. This is acceptable on the Saab.
The alternate option is that you don't call company and depart, while keeping in mind that the toilet all of a sudden broke enroute.
If all that is happening is that the toilet is continuously flushing you can always pull/reset the breaker for the LAV see if that fixes it, but either way it should create an unsafe inflight situation.
Main point here is once you contact maintenance, the issue needs to be addressed. Otherwise you leave yourself open.