American Airlines AA37 Diverts to JFK With Only Two Toilets Working on Its 777

On October 6, 2026, American Airlines flight AA37 from Madrid to Dallas-Fort Worth diverted to New York’s JFK after all but two of the lavatories on its Boeing 777 stopped working. The FAA said the jet landed at JFK “after the crew reported an inadequate number of operational lavatories.”

The aircraft had 287 people on board, CNN reported. It landed safely and later flew on to Dallas, arriving about four hours behind schedule.

What happened on AA37

Flightradar24 records show the flight was operated by N772AN, a Boeing 777-200ER. The FAA registry lists the jet as a 777-223 built in 1999, with Rolls-Royce engines, registered to American Airlines.

According to FlightAware, AA37 left Madrid at 11:10 a.m. local time and landed at JFK at 12:27 p.m. Eastern, a trip of 7 hours 16 minutes. On the other recent days in FlightAware’s history, the same nonstop to Dallas took between about 9.5 and 10.5 hours.

An American 777 typically has eight lavatories, CNN reported, and only two were working. As the jet approached JFK, the pilot told air traffic control there were “only two potties operating on board for American 37,” and the controller asked the crew to confirm it.

The pilot declared “pan-pan,” the radio call for an urgent situation that is not immediately life-threatening. CNN reported that the jet still had more than four hours of fuel on board, which put it over its normal landing weight.

The same aircraft left JFK at 3:56 p.m. Eastern, after almost three and a half hours on the ground, and landed in Dallas at 6:13 p.m. Central. Its original arrival time had been 2:15 p.m.

American Airlines did not respond to CNN’s request for comment, and AeroCorner found no published statement from the airline at the time of writing. What caused the lavatories to fail has not been disclosed.

Why a toilet failure can end a long-haul flight

CNN, citing experts, described aircraft toilets as complicated devices powered by air pressure that can get blocked or otherwise malfunction. With 287 people aboard and two working lavatories, each toilet was serving more than 140 people.

The FAA’s rules for flying with broken equipment show how lavatories are treated. Its master minimum equipment list for the Boeing 787, for example, lets a jet be dispatched with an inoperative lavatory if the plumbing is isolated to prevent leaks and the door is locked shut and placarded as out of use.

That 787 list gives zero as the number of such lavatories required for dispatch, so it sets no minimum number of working toilets. It also shows the role of air pressure: if a vacuum blower fails, the toilets it serves may not be used on the ground or below 16,000 feet. The 777 is covered by its own list.

Those lists govern whether a jet may depart with a known fault. Once lavatories fail in flight, continuing or stopping becomes an operational call, and on AA37 it ended in a flight diversion with the Dallas leg still more than three hours away.

Landing early has its own cost. A landing above normal landing weight can cause problems such as overheated brakes, CNN noted.

Not the first toilet diversion on this route

American has diverted a 777 on the Dallas-Madrid route to JFK over a lavatory before. On August 7, 2024, flight AA36 from Dallas to Madrid, flown by the 777-200ER N751AN, diverted to JFK after a lavatory overflowed, Aviation A2Z reported at the time.

Other airlines have made the same call. In March 2025, Air India flight AI126 from Chicago to Delhi turned back after most of its toilets became unusable, landing in Chicago after about 10 hours in the air, according to The Tribune.

Air India said it found plastic bags, rags and clothes stuck in the plumbing, ABC7 Chicago reported. Lavatory faults can also look like something worse: in July, a Delta A220 diverted to Vancouver over a smoke-like smell in a lavatory that investigators traced to a faulty water heater.