TIL to never drink airline water, tea or coffee

With all that free coffee and tea available to pilots and flight attendants, have you ever wondered why so many crewmembers can be seen boarding flights with their own cups of java? Well, the dirty little secret of flying is that the water used to make the coffee and tea is, well, dirty.

Thirty years ago when I was working for USAir, we began a process to bleach the water tanks that hold the water and flush out the system. This was done on a regular basis. Yet, it was clear to anyone working on these tanks and their hoses that a lot of sediment was accumulating in the system, sediment that was akin to pond scum. Even after the tanks were bleached and flushed, some sediment always remained. It’s hard to drink anything made with water from those tanks after seeing what accumulates in there.