Nightmare Flight Forces Passengers to Pee in Bottles as They Depart Paradise

Being stuck on an airplane for an extended period of time is a nightmare for some people. And that's even when things go completely right. When things go wrong, even the most stalwart and patient passenger can find themselves living out a nightmare.

This is what a Virgin Airlines group of passengers experienced as they departed paradise into what would turn out to be the flight from anything but.

Airline attendants forced passengers to pee in bottles and bags, and things went from awkward and weird to worse very quickly. Here's what we know about the unfortunate flight.

Being trapped on a flight with something malfunctioning would be anyone's worst nightmare. You're stuck in the air and you are completely helpless, reliant on the airplane to be working as intended. Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen.

For a group of Virgin Airlines passengers leaving Bali in late August 2025, this combination of helplessness and failed technology is what they had to live through.

The plane departed Bali on the way to Brisbane aboard a Boeing 737 MAX 8.

When they left, the rear lavatory on the Boeing was already out of order, according to the New York Post. And things went from bad to worse. According to the outlet, the flight wasn't delayed because there was a lack of engineering support on the ground in Bali to fix the issue, so they decided to let it take off as scheduled.

Unfortunately, about halfway through the lengthy flight, the remaining two toilets failed, leaving passengers completely without options. Except for the unthinkable, that is: bags and bottles.

One passenger told The Australian, "Midway through the flight, every toilet failed. For the remaining three hours, the cabin crew informed us we would need to relieve ourselves in bottles or ‘on top of whatever was already in the toilet’.” They added, "One elderly woman was unable to hold on and suffered the humiliation of wetting herself in public."

Passengers reported a foul odor, among other unpleasant experiences.

A statement released by Virgin took responsibility for the in-flight nightmare, reading in part, "A Virgin Australia flight from Denpasar to Brisbane on Thursday evening experienced an issue during the flight which affected the serviceability of the lavatories."

The statement continued, "We sincerely apologize to our guests and thank our crew for managing a challenging situation on board.”

According to the New York Post, the Transport Workers Union (TWU) reached out to Virgin to explore the topic further, given the fact that the incident was a “Distressing event, which constitutes a severe hazard both for crew and passengers."

News reports later noted that passengers were compensated for the incident via flight credits, and that they would be contacted individually for compensation, according to SkyNews Australia.

While the incident is a disgusting and unfortunate chapter for these passengers and crew members, it highlights a larger problem: making sure air travel is staffed appropriately. It's unclear what kind of procedures and rules Bali has for staffing their engineering teams, but clearly someone dropped the ball somewhere along the way.