Actor Kal Penn was caught up in an emergency landing after toilets on the plane he was flying in overflowed.

The Harold & Kumar star was on an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Dallas, Texas on Tuesday (03Jul12) when the plumbing broke, forcing the pilot to land the plane in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Taking to his Twitter.com page after the aircraft touched down, Penn wrote, "Toilet overflowed. My 1st emergency landing cuz (because) of poop. Kinda funny kinda not."

A spokesperson for American Airlines explained, "The lavatories were inoperable, so we landed in Albuquerque briefly to service them, for the convenience of our customers. We apologised to our passengers for the inconvenience."