There’s nothing surprising about seeing a big “no smoking” sign on an airplane lavatory door. But something else might stand out as odd: the nearby ashtray.
Far from a mixed message, the presence of dedicated cigarette waste bins — when smoking has long been banned on flights — is a safety requirement meant to act as a layer of protection against scofflaws.
“The FAA continues to require lavatory ashtrays on airplanes as a critical fire-safety precaution,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. Federal regulations specify that the ashtrays must be self-contained, fire-resistant and removable. If an ashtray is missing or doesn’t work, the FAA said, the airline is required to promptly replace it.
The United States banned smoking on international flights to and from the country in 2000, a move that followed smoking bans on domestic flights that started in the 1980s.
Those bans notwithstanding, “lavatory ashtrays address the potential that a passenger may violate the law and smoke on board in a lavatory in an effort to avoid discovery,” the FAA statement said. “The ashtray provides a designated, fireproof location to safely extinguish a cigarette, dissuading a passenger from discarding it in the lavatory trash bin that could potentially be filled with flammable paper.”
In other words: “Smoking’s not allowed, but we know it’s happening,” said Robert Joslin, an associate professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s College of Aviation.
Statistics on in-flight smoking on planes in the U.S., a country where nearly 12 percent of adults smoked cigarettes in 2022, are not readily available. But in Japan, where nearly 15 percent of adults reported smoking, airlines told authorities there were 429 incidents of smoking on domestic and international flights last year, according to news reports.
According to the FAA, plane passengers who violate federal smoking laws could face fines up to $1,771.
Joslin, who previously served as the FAA’s chief scientific and technical adviser for flight deck technology, said planes have layers of safety measures in place, both from a design and operational standpoint, to prevent potentially catastrophic fires. Those precautions include no smoking signs, smoke detectors, fire extinguishing systems, trained cabin crew — and, yes, ashtrays to keep smoldering items out of the regular waste bin.
In 1973, more than 120 people died on a flight from Brazil to France on Brazilian carrier Varig after a fire started in a lavatory. The plane crash-landed in a field short of Paris Orly Airport; a report said the fire could have been caused by an electrical problem or a passenger’s careless actions.
Joslin said the Varig incident and a fatal fire a decade later that started in an Air Canada lavatory prompted improvements in fire safety.
“This is a significant enough threat that you want to have all these things in place,” Joslin said.
Some travelers report alarm when they notice a place for cigarette butts in their plane’s bathroom, wondering if they’re on an extremely old plane. Ashtray observations sometimes crop up on social media videos about “fun facts” or subreddits devoted to “mildly interesting” musings.
“It’s a good trivia question,” Joslin said.
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