Airplane bathroom:
- Why are there ashtrays in the bathrooms on nonsmoking flights?
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16As covered in this great talk - What Programmers can learn from Pilots about 18 minutes in, Lavatory Ashtrays are required for a 747 to be valid to take off, but weather radar isn't!– GagravarrCommented Aug 25, 2015 at 9:55
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3As a cabin crew member, we use it when we deliver empty planes (ferry flights) because we smoke in these flights because no one is seeing us.. we do nasty things on planes when there are no passengers ;) :D– Nean Der ThalCommented Aug 25, 2015 at 11:40
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5I'd always presumed these were left over from before smoking was banned on planes!– user9533Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 11:11
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related reading: travel.stackexchange.com/questions/5224/…– EdmundYeung99Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 1:39
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@CGCampbell how should I attribute it to myself, then?– Mou某Commented Oct 4, 2015 at 17:00
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2 Answers
Asked and answered on Aviation.SE.
Summary: They're required by US federal aviation regulations. The apparent rationale is: a desperate, or unscrupulous, smoker might (illegally) light a cigarette in the lavatory. If they do, it is good for there to be somewhere safe for them to put the cigarette butt. Otherwise, if they don't see anywhere else to put it, they might put it in the trash receptacle, which is full of combustible paper and could start a dangerous fire.
There is speculation that the 1973 crash of Varig Flight 820 may have been caused by just such a fire.
answered Aug 25, 2015 at 3:41
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34I feel like it's like telling kids: don't do drugs but here's clean needles just in case– Mou某Commented Aug 25, 2015 at 3:44
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64@user3306356 The hazards afforded by sharing needles are oft worse than the drugs in the first place. Similarly here the hazard of a fire is much worse than someone having a quick fag.– CalchasCommented Aug 25, 2015 at 8:16
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6@user Indeed, that is not an uncommon public-health policy. See en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needle_exchange_programme -- plenty of cities have determined that people will do drugs even without clean needles and it's better if those people don't get AIDS.– cpastCommented Aug 25, 2015 at 19:54
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15@user3306356 if you find a kid that's like "I don't really wanna do drugs" and then you're like "if you ever do, here is a clean needle" and then he is like "well, then, I don't see why I wouldn't do drugs, now that I have a clean needle. That is really the thing that is inciting me to do so.", that kid has problems.– njzk2Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 2:12
Having worked for a Government contractor, I can tell you first hand that it is very expensive to make a design change, even a trivial one like removing ashtrays that are no longer needed. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen piping being re-routed around obstructions that no longer exist. The reason was that the cost of reworking all of the drawings, re-engineering the design, and getting all necessary approvals costs far more than just continuing with the unnecessary work. Generally, material is far cheaper than labor.
The "just in case someone decides to smoke" explanation seems plausible, but sounds more like an afterthought to me. I think the likely reason, like most everything else, is money. The cost of installing an unnecessary ashtray in a new airplane is orders of magnitude cheaper than paying all of those people to remove it from the airplane's design. This does not even consider the cost incurred by the FAA to update all of their regulations.
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12new planes are designed with ashtrays too. The A380, for example.– njzk2Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 2:13