Ashtrays in airplane toilets

I was traveling by air recently and I noticed the ashtrays in the airplane toilets. It reminded me of a question I had earlier about why airplane toilets still had ashtrays even though smoking on airplanes got banned a long long time ago.

And then I remembered this video I watched earlier which answered the question :


Basically, the reason why modern airplanes still have ashtrays in their toilets is to safegaurd against human stupidity. Even though smoking on airplanes is banned and is punishable by fines and/or jail time, people apparently still do it. And smoking on airplanes can lead them to make emergency landings.

If you don't understand why smoking on airplanes is a problem, think for a moment about how air circulation works on a tin can flying tens of thousands of feet in the air.

Apparently, fires were started in airplane bathrooms because smokers threw the lit cigarettes into the trash cans.

Now you know.

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