A JetBlue flight from Philadelphia to Boston was grounded for several hours Saturday after employees refused to remove poop clogging a broken toilet, prompting its cancellation.
JetBlue Flight 260 was scheduled to depart Philadelphia International Airport at 8:40 a.m. for Boston. However, according to an eyewitness who spoke to The New York Post, passengers were forced to wait on the plane for nearly an hour before staff offered an explanation.
The staff reported that the plane could not take off, citing faeces lodged in a malfunctioning bathroom as the cause of the delay, an eyewitness said.
“We boarded as normal … and then they told us there was a mechanical problem with the bathrooms,” Hilary Coulter, a Philadelphia resident traveling to Boston to visit family, told The NYP. “…we had to get off the plane.”
Passengers were asked to get off the plane and were told repeatedly that the problem would be resolved soon.
“They said it would be like 15 to 20 minutes. And then they said another 15 to 20 minutes,” Hilary recalled.
After several hours of waiting, passengers were bluntly told that “crew were unwilling to remove the faeces” and therefore the plane could not fly.
“They told us there was faeces in the toilet that had been broken on the plane and that the staff were not willing to remove the faeces and we couldn’t fly with faeces in the toilet,” she said.
Hilary said the revelation left passengers in shock – “They were all like, what?”
Passengers offered to clean the toilet
Hilary told the NYP that at least two passengers offered to clean the toilet themselves if it meant the flight could take off.
“He went up and said … ‘I’ll clean it up if it means we can take off,'” she said. “They turned him down.
Cancel or rebook
The flight remained in limbo until the early afternoon as delays were pushed back in half-hour increments. Finally, JetBlue gave passengers the option to cancel for a refund or rebook on another flight.
The JetBlue flight was officially canceled around 2 p.m., hours after it was scheduled to land in Boston, disrupting the plans of passengers, especially those with connecting flights.
Hilary Coulter told NYP she decided to change flights; however, travel difficulties continued for her — her replacement flight was later delayed due to weather in Boston.
“My dad was already on his cell phone waiting to pick me up before we had to get off the plane,” she said.