Gardener covered in flying poo from plane
An aeroplane flying into Heathrow airport is being blamed
Last updated 19th Oct 2021
A gardener has had a smelly shock when ‘human excrement’ fell from the sky into their back garden.
The resident reported the bizarre incident to his local councillor saying his whole garden was splattered by ‘toilet sewage’ discharged from a plane landing at Heathrow airport.
The incident happened in the summer where the resident, who lives “fairly centrally” to Windsor, was out in his garden when all of a sudden, a fluid of human faeces fell from an aircraft, splashing the whole garden, his umbrellas, and him as well.
"Horrified" Clewer East councillor Karen Davies (Lib Dem) told the meeting the fluid was not frozen as there have been reports of frozen sewage in the past but not raw sewage like in this situation.
Cllr John Bowden (Con: Eton & Castle) believed the fluid was unfrozen was due to the summer heat and it came from an altitude of 6,000 feet.
The Windsor councillor also said the resident contacted the council’s environmental health team and Heathrow who were able to connect him with the Civil Aviation Authority and the airline.
The airline denied their plane was flying to Heathrow, but later changed that view when the resident in question was able to identify the aircraft thanks to an aircraft tracker app.
Whitfield parish councillor Geoff Paxton, who formerly worked at various airports for 40 years, said: “This is so rare these days. We used to have problems with blue ice on arrivals but that was because those toilets used to leak.
“The modern aircraft have got vacuum toilets and they have a very secure system, and I would think it was either aircraft fault or someone hadn’t actually finished servicing, but they are so rare these days.”
He further explained: “Vacuum toilets rely on the pressurisation in the aircraft to force the waste into the tank, but below 6000 feet, there isn’t enough pressure.
“So, you have vacuum blowers that do it and there is a vent. So, it could well be that something came out of the vent at low altitude.
“It’s very rare and I haven’t seen that happen for years, actually.”