Smoke Toilet

There are only a few reasons to rush something when flying. An indication of a fire is one of them. Fire is not something to be taken lightly. It must be treated with the utmost urgency. Nothing raises the hair on the back of my neck like talking about a fire on board an aircraft. Nothing gets my attention in the cockpit faster than an indication that there may be a fire on board. The other day was the first time I've ever had to deal with a potential fire on board my aircraft in flight.

It started out as a normal routine day. We had a late show time of 1130am coming off a long overnight, so for once I was well rested and ready for the day. The plane still had some left over snow on it from the night before, so after boarding up we headed on over to the de-ice bay to get hosed off. The Captain and I remarked to each other that the de-icer was really spraying it on thick. It looked to us like he was trying to empty the truck of fluid on our plane. He was really giving it a bath. (I think we both took notice of this and tucked it away in our short term memory banks for later use.) After spraying we completed our after de-icing checklist and made our way to the runway. After a 10 minute atc delay we took the runway for departure. It was a nice clear day with light winds out of the east, I was looking forward to a nice easy flight. Little did I know that flight would only last 8 minutes in the air.

As we turned on the runway, rechecked our headings an initial altitude, I took control of the aircraft. I brought the thrust levers up, released the brakes and had the Captain set thrust. Everything was normal. We accelerated down the runway, he called "V1, Rotate........V2" and we lifted off. He called "positive rate" I called for the gear to be raised and thats when we started to "smell that smell, oohhhh that smell" to quote some Skynard. It was that acrid, smoldering stink of type 1 de-icing fluid going through our environmental system. Only this time, it was stronger and more concentrated than I have ever smelled it. About a second after it hit our olfactory nerves, thats when the master caution single chime went off. I quickly glanced over at the eicas and saw the Smoke Toilet caution message staring back at me. The very next thought out of my tiny pilot brain was, "shit, thats not good" followed very quickly by my saying"I have the controls and radios, perform the QRH for smoke toilet. From previous experience running this checklist in the sim, I knew at the end of it we were to land at the nearest suitable airport. So while the Captain was busy performing the QRH, I informed the tower we were declaring an emergency and returning to the airport.

It was a busy time in the cockpit with the Captain running the checklist, calling the flight attendant to have her check the lav and pulling circuit breakers while I was flying the plane, talking to atc and setting up the aircraft for an approach back into the airport. Thankfully the weather was nice and made flying the plane an easy task. Since we were in such close proximity to the airport, all I did was make a left turn to put us on a left downwind for the runway we had just departed. Since the Captain was busy with the QRH, I had to plug in the ILS to the FMS, plug in the ILS frequency into the RTU, set the proper V-speeds for our current overweight landing, put the flaps out, the gear down and run the before landing checklist. By the time the Captain caught up with everything, I was already turning a 3 mile final. He double checked everything I had already done and re-completed the before landing checklist. The approach and landing was about as normal as could be in that situation. The landing was a greaser and we taxied off the runway to have the local Crash Fire Rescue (CFR) come take a look at the lav for us.

Now I know what you may be thinking, why are they not stopping on the runway and evacuating the passengers? Theres a fire on the plane!! The flight attendant went back and checked the lav while we were in the air. She reported there was no indication of a fire. So with her verification and the fact that we've heard stories of de-icing fluid causing a smoke toilet message, we decided not to do an evacuation. We did however pull into the de-icing bay and have CFR come on board and inspect the lav for us. They did not find any indication of a fire. So we started up an engine and headed over to the gate. The passengers de-planed and we got on the phone with the company to find out the next step. Little did we know that the next step wouldn't happen for another 5 hours and ended up with the flight being cancelled due to weather in DTW, but thats another story in itself.