Did you hear the joke about spilled coffee and the airline?
Actually, it's no joke!
United Airlines flight 940 (above photos), carrying 241 passengers from Chicago to Germany was forced to make an emergency landing in Canada because the pilot spilled coffee on the plane's radio equipment.
After the communication and navigation equipment malfunctioned, the plane had to land before 10:00 p.m.at Toronto's Pearson International Airport.
To make matters worse, a probe into the incident has found that a pilot's spilt coffee was responsible for an emergency hijacking call as well.
Of course the airline refused to confirm that spilled coffee caused the problem, but the details became known, then noted by the Aviation Herald , a website that logs incidents on commercial flights based on flight data and incident reports.
It said that the FAA reported after contact with the company, that the pilot in command had spilled coffee over the radio equipment which interfered with the communication equipment. NAV Canada reported that the crew advised of communication problems, and then reported they had navigation problems as well.
A replacement plane was sent to pick up the passengers and take them all the way back to Chicago, where they were set to board another flight for Frankfurt on Tuesday.
