You press the illuminated flush button stowed behind the toilet seat and it begins. 

A gargling noise builds from somewhere below, bouncing around the walls of the coffin-sized airline loo, growing in volume like the toilet itself is about to take-off. 

When it hits its peak, a flap opens and away it goes. Gone, but for some people, not forgotten. 

The burning question: What happens to your waste when you flush the loo on a plane mid-flight? Now, TikTok pilot @flywithgarrrett (pictured) has revealed the answer

The burning question: What happens to your waste when you flush the loo on a plane mid-flight? Now, TikTok pilot @flywithgarrrett (pictured) has revealed the answer

He gave the answer to the mystery of the plane loo (pictured) in a video seen a whopping 4.4million times over TikTok

He gave the answer to the mystery of the plane loo (pictured) in a video seen a whopping 4.4million times over TikTok

Now, an airline pilot has solved the mystery that has been puzzling airline passengers for decades. What happens when you flush the loo at 30,000 feet in the air?

It cannot simply get dumped out mid-flight to splatter on the ground below, surely? Some people believe so. 

In a video seen a whopping 4.4million times, TikTok pilot @flywithgarrrett told his 506,000 followers: ‘When you’re on an aeroplane and you gotta go, where does it go?’

He continued: ‘Did you know that whenever you flush the toilet on the aircraft, it actually doesn’t dump out into the population down below?

‘It goes through plumbing to the rear of the aircraft and the seal compartments where the ground crew at the destination will remove all that waste. 

‘On a 747 – on a long haul flight – toilets can be flushed over a thousand times, creating over 320 gallons of waste. That’s a lot.’

The aerial expert’s revelation left some social media users reeling. 

One honest viewer admitted: ‘Since I was a kid I used to think when over a sea the pilot flush it out. Omg.’

Another added: ‘Thank you for clearing that up. Hopefully now we can let the matter drop.’

‘I thought they dumped it in the ocean,’ said a third.

However, other people were genuinely astounded that anyone could believe their business would fly out of the plane after every flush.

The waste goes through to the rear of the plane where it is sealed away in a special container that can only be opened by ground crew from the outside of the jet after it lands

The waste goes through to the rear of the plane where it is sealed away in a special container that can only be opened by ground crew from the outside of the jet after it lands

Jet toilets can be flushed over a thousand times, creating over 320 gallons of waste, Garrett said in his TikTok video (pictured)

Jet toilets can be flushed over a thousand times, creating over 320 gallons of waste, Garrett said in his TikTok video (pictured)

One TikTok user commented: ‘Wait ppl actually think it dumps out below?’ 

Another added: ‘Actually people that believe that it would get expelled from the aircraft to the population below? And if so, do these people vote?’

‘It’s still perplexes me that people think it just dumps out of the plane,’ said a third.

‘Who even thought it drops below straight?’ said another.

According to Gizmondo: ‘Pressing the flush button opens a valve in the bottom of the bowl, exposing the contents to a pneumatic vacuum.

‘That vac sucks the load down the plane’s sewer line into a 200-gallon holding tank.’ 

Lavatories in jets have a sort of Teflon non-stick coating to help in pulling the waste down into the storage tanks. 

But there have been occasions when toilet waste has leaked from jets mid-flight. 

In January 2018, officials in Indian were forced to admit that an icy ball which fell on a village in the northern state of Haryana was frozen human waste which leaked from a jet overhead.

The 10-12kg chunk of brown-white ice fell on Fazilpur Badli village with a ‘big thud’, startling residents. 

Vivek Kalia, a senior official from the Gurgaon district, claimed villagers thought it was an ‘extra-terrestrial’ object.

Mr Kalia told the BBC that a sample of the projectile had been sent for chemical analysis, but ‘we suspect strongly’ that it is frozen airline excrement.

‘It was a very heavy icy ball of ice which dropped from the skies early on Saturday morning. There was big thud and people of the village came running out of their homes to find out what had happened,’ he told the BBC

‘Some villagers thought it was an extra-terrestrial object. Others thought it was some celestial rock and I’ve heard that they took samples home,’ he said.

The Times of India newspaper reported that people ‘sneaked a few pieces into their clothes’, and stored them in refrigerators at home.

India previously said it would start fining airlines that empty their plane’s toilet tanks in mid-air in 2016, following earlier reports of human waste being dropped on people’s homes.

The country’s National Green Tribunal, an environmental court, introduced a 50,000 rupee (£600) charge on any airline that fails to store the waste onboard so it can be properly disposed of.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk

You May Also Like

Fossilised BRAIN found in a 500 million-year-old prawn-like creature sheds light on insect evolution

The fossilised brain of a three-eyed prawn-like creature that swam the oceans…

Amazon’s Alexa-enabled Echo Buds are now £60 OFF

Alongside the likes of Apple, Samsung and Sennheiser, Amazon has its own…

Out-of-control Elon Musk rocket ‘doomed to hit Moon’ sparks fears of ‘huge crater and contamination’

AN OUT-of-control rocket on course to crash into the Moon threatens to…

Chip Makers Cut Costs as Demand Slump Supplants Pandemic’s Chip Shortage

Tech After sharp growth during Covid, semiconductor executives are now enacting hiring…