kerflumexed

A Captain friend once told me that when he misses a good cup of airplane coffee, he just fills his coffee maker at home from the garden hose.

N965VJ

Even if you wash your hands to operating room standards, as soon as you hit this environment;

...it doesn't matter anymore. Embrace the germs!


You know, that's what potable water from a new Airbus tastes like to me; water from a garden hose. Reminds me of drinking out of the hose when I was a kid.

pinworm

Most aircraft I have been on have a iconographic sign, and one in english or spanish, indicating that it is not potable water. If it says it isn't, trust the sign.

Pat89339

And from several years back some research done by an FTers son:

WSJ: How Safe is Airline Water? A Story Initiatied by our Youngest FTer

Silver Fox

I have been brushing my teeth in the water for years now, and the teeth that remain are pretty good

Mr. Elliott

Where do you thing the water comes from when they make brew hot coffee or tea in flight, from the same tanks that supply water to the lav sinks. And that hot water for coffee does not heat up to the boiling point to sterilize the water, I think it gets up to about 180 degrees or so.

Airliners do not have 2 separate water supplies, potable and non-potable, they all draw from the same tank. I would assume that the reason they might placard the lav sink as non-potable is the faucet spigot is not the cleanest thing on earth, and is probably a germ factory from water being splashed up on it when people wash their hands after using the lav.

All aircraft water tanks have filters on them, also the tanks are cleaned and sanitized periodically.

What I have seen is the past that does disturb me is the way they service the water tank. On the outside of the fuselage there is access panel with a water connection, the line service people drag a hose over and connect it to the water service connection and fill the tank until it overflows into the outside overflow drain. Then they disconnect the water hose and drag it back with the hose connection dragging on the ramp, so the next time it is hooked up there is probably some who knows what on the end of the hose going into the water tank.

Hopefully the filters on the water tanks do their job and clean the water, personally for me in flight its apple juice, never coffee.

Mr. Elliott

1worldtrader

nice one.

Rambuster

I'd avoid that water like the plague .... unless you want the plague.
Chateau bubonic!

Flaflyer

There really is such a thing. On his TV show the French chef Jacques Pepin was making something when he tossed off "If it is getting a little dry, just add a little Chateau Sink."

nerd

If airplane water were unsafe, wouldn't we occasionally see outbreaks of sick passengers from a dirty plane, the same way that a couple of people can get sick and die from dirty lettuce, or dirty ground beef?

Mr. Elliott

I would not say the water on airplanes is unsafe to drink, the water tank is being serviced a few times a day, usually not at an outstation, but when they go through one of their main bases, so the water doesn’t sit there growing bacteria as long as the airline changes the filters and sanitizes the tanks regularly.

There are very good filters on the water systems, but I would not drink any water from the sinks in the lavs for the reason I posted before, but if I had to, I would drink the water from the galley, it’s just the taste that I don’t like, like some municipal water systems that load up the water with chemicals to purify the water.

Mr. Elliott

tommyleo

Finally, someone is using his noodle. ^

+1 BILLION!!!!!^

l etoile

Boeing stated that the only filters they put on the tanks are for taste, not for impurities.

Mr. Elliott

Here is a link to an interesting article about aircraft water systems

http://www.airlines.org/Environment/...kingWater.aspx

Mr. Elliott

l etoile

Trust me, I'm pretty well up on them. If you do some searches on the new EPA regs to go into effect you should find the specifics. I could send you much, much more if you're that interested.