Airlines To Be Fined Rs 50,000 For Mid-Air Poop Drop

It all began in 2016 when an Indian woman and a retired army officer complained that airplanes had been dropping human excreta on residential areas.

According to Independent, in early 2016, an Indian woman suffered a grave shoulder injury as a large chunk of ¡®blue ice¡¯ dropped on her from the sky. Aviation experts believed that ¡®blue ice¡¯ was the name given to frozen human excreta that is formed around the overflow outlets on airplane toilets.

The term refers to the blue chemicals that are used in airline washrooms. Later in December 2016, a retired army officer, Lt. General Satwant Singh Dahiya had moved the NGT alleging that faeces were splattered from aircraft on his South Delhi house before Diwali in 2016.

The tribunal, therefore, held that if "any aircraft, airlines and the handling services of registered aircraft" were found to be dumping human waste from the air or toilet tanks were found to have been emptied before landing, they shall be subjected to environmental compensation of Rs 50,000 per case of default.

In a recent development, in what looked like a hurried circular the Directorate General Of Civil Aviation (DGCA) directed the airlines in India that they will have to pay a Rs 50,000 fine if they empty the toilet mid-air. The order came on August 30 after the NGT warned the aviation regulatory body that it would stop funding the salaries of DGCA employees if they do not adhere to the rules, reported HT.

A DGCA official further told HT, ¡°In compliance with the directions of the NGT, all air operators have been directed to not to release any waste during landing and take off or near airports. The operators have been told that they would have to pay Rs 50,000 as environmental compensation if their planes are found dumping waste mid-air. They have been asked to submit monthly reports.¡±

The NGT had also asked the DGCA to carry out surprise inspection of aircraft landing at the airport to check that their toilet tanks are not empty while landing and prevent waste from being splashed over residential areas and any other place before landing.

In May this year, the Directorate General Of Civil Aviation (DGCA) defended the airlines saying that it was impossible for an airplane to dump waste mid-air. The aircraft system has three level of in-built external protection for disposing the waste and under no circumstance release of waste during flight is possible and there has been no such resort ever by the operators, said a report by PTI.

The modern-day airline toilets are sealed and cannot be emptied in flight and toilet waste can only be disposed of by manual operation on the ground during its servicing. The tribunal had earlier constituted a committee comprising representatives from the DGCA, Central Avian Research Institute, and CPCB to collect samples from the house of Dahiya.

However, it couldn¡¯t be fully ascertained if human excreta was actually present in the waste samples. The DGCA has asked the airline to follow the orders till the review petition is heard. According to the Independent, it is not only India that is plagued by waste falling from the sky, around 25 cases of human waste falling from planes in the UK are reported every year.