Water shortage forces airliner to land

A Saudi airliner was forced to return to Ninoy Aquino International Airport yesterday after its crew found out that the plane’s toilets had run out of water.

The Saudia flight, bound for Damman and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, took off just after 2 p.m. But plane later radioed the airport and advised that it was turning around.

"Being an eight-hour flight, the pilots decided that they could not last that long without water in their toilets," Octavio Lina, assistant general manager of the Manila International Airport Authority, told The STAR. "So they decided to just land back here."

The plane touched down at around 5:19 p.m. and its 300 passengers were requested to disembark while ground maintenance personnel fixed the problem.