Norwegian airline plane full of plumbers couldn't fix its broken toilet

A Norwegian flight with a broken toilet was forced to return to Oslo only 20 minutes into the journey - despite the plane being full of plumbers.

The service from the Norwegian capital bound for the German city of Munich - a two hour and 20 minute flight - was carrying 85 tradesmen from the country's plumbing industry including 65 from one company, Rørkjøp.

But the army of plumbers was unable to fix the faulty loo.

"We would have liked to fix the restrooms, but unfortunately it had to be done from the outside and we did not take the opportunity to send a plumber [out] at 10,000 metres," Rørkjøp ceo Frank Olsen told Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet.

Data from FlightRadar24.com shows the Boeing 737 aircraft departed Oslo at 8:28 local time, climbed to 33,000 feet, before turning around. The aircraft then flew north of Oslo and circled to burn fuel before landing an hour after departure.

A spokesperson for Norwegian said: "Flight DY1156 from Oslo to Munich on Saturday January 27 returned to Oslo due to a technical fault with the toilet. The aircraft was repaired and continued with the flight later that day.

"We would like to thank passengers for their patience and would like to apologise for the inconvenience."

Norwegian engineers inspected the lavatory on the ground at Oslo to determine the source of the problem, before the aircraft departed for Munich and arrived three-and-a-half hours late.