Cabin crew had to scoop human waste from toilets after AFL team’s plane ran out of water, union says

A lack of water on a plane chartered by the Fremantle Dockers posed ‘an unsanitary and unsafe environment for both cabin crew and passengers’, the TWU says. Photograph: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Cabin crew were forced to scoop human waste out of onboard toilets and other passengers were left to urinate directly into basins, a union says, after a charter flight carrying an AFL team ran out of water, making flushing impossible.

The National Jet Express (NJE) plane was chartered by the Fremantle Dockers to fly the team to Perth after their loss to Hawthorn in the Tasmanian city of Launceston on Saturday. It reportedly ran out of water just 30 minutes into the four-hour flight.