Photo: Jenni Konrad/Flickr
The first vacuum toilets were installed on commercial airplanes in 1992 and, in addition to being ridiculously loud, that pneumatic vacuum sucks everything that’s dropped into the bowl into the plane’s 200 gallon holding tank. Apparently that even includes bullets. A United Airlines pilot is currently under investigation for doing that very thing — for flushing ten bullets down the toilet during a late June flight from Houston to Munich.
According to The Aviation Herald, which first reported the incident, the as-yet-unidentified pilot discovered the bullets in his luggage somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. He knew that he wouldn’t be permitted to take the live ammunition into Germany, so he initially dumped it into the trash. But then panicked, stupidity collided with poor timing, and some of the cabin crew had to sift through all of the waste bins to try to find a passenger’s lost ring. A flight attendant discovered the bullets and gave them back to the captain, who was busy testing the limits of his Old Spice High Endurance deodorant at that point. He flushed the bullets down the toilet, but when the flight attendant asked him about them later, he realized that either she’d file a report or he’d have to out himself to the ground crew.
After landing in Munich, the plane was taken to “a remote parking position” and airport fire fighters had the beyond-awful task of emptying the plane’s waste tanks to find the bullets. They recovered six of them on their first try, then had to do it again to find the other four. The aircraft then returned to the gate area and left on its return flight after a four-hour delay (and man, we’d like to know how United sold that one to the Houston-bound passengers).
In the months after 9/11, the TSA developed the Federal Flight Deck Officer program, and in 2003 a law went into effect that allows eligible crew members – “a pilot, flight engineer or navigator” – to carry firearms in the cockpit. BUT that law only applies to flights within the United States, not those that are going to, say, Germany. United spokesperson Karen May confirmed that the pilot did not have his gun on the flight but also said that no, he shouldn’t have flushed a giant handful of bullets either. She told the Associated Press:
He did incorrectly dispose of the ammunition, but it is likely that the pilot is not going to face any criminal charges.
The airline said that the pilot is still employed, but would not comment on his status beyond that. The TSA is also investigating the incident.