A Delta flight flying direct from New York City to Seattle on Saturday night had to make an unplanned stop more than 300km out of its way in Billings, Montana, for an emergency toilet break.

While en route, the Boeing 757’s toilets “ceased functioning, with passengers queuing up and indicating they needed to visit the toilet,” a Delta incident report, according to The Billings Gazette.

The flight from New York City to Seattle typically takes about six hours but when you are busting, six hours can be a lifetime.

“All toilets were full and passengers needed to ‘go really bad,’” the report states.

So the flight, travelling near the Canadian border, diverted roughly 320km to Billings, where it landed about 6pm.

Upon landing in Billings, the plane had to taxi to a cargo area because a gate was not available. Delta says ground crews rolled a stairway to the aeroplane so passengers could “disembark to find relief of built-up pressures”.

Kevin Ploehn, the Billings director of aviation and transit told The Billings Gazette that flights do get diverted to Billings Logan International Airport occasionally, but not normally to answer the call of nature.

“I’ve heard of flights getting diverted, not here, because toilets overflowed and that blue water was rolling down the aisle,” he said.

“That can’t be very pleasant.”