jettisoning fuel

I swear when i was flying VS0045 in 2005 that we dumped fuel over the atlantic.

It looks EXACTLY the same as in the video.

Hmmm.

Can anyone answer a couple of related questions I have:

What impact does a fuel dump have on the local environment?

Is there a minimum height at which a fuel dump can take place; is this dependant on aircraft type?

That’s an interesting video cloud 9 ..thank you

Steve, just to set the record straight, the video isn’t mine, its just one I found from the website – sorry if you thought otherwise! I just happened to be browsing some videos and started to read this thread, and so looked up to see if there were any videos and found that one, but I do agree it is quite interesting to see it happen!

That’s an interesting video cloud 9 ..thank you

To see a fuel dump in progress, check out this video from Flightlevel350.com, it was filmed whilst on a Continental Airlines 767-300 flight that has to return to London to offload an ill passenger! The fuel dump doesn’t start until about 2mins into the film…

http://www.flightlevel350.com/Aircraft_Boeing_767-300-Airline_Continental_Airlines_Aviation_Video-7178.html

Thanks for replies.

The aircraft I was thinking about was an A340. I know people on such a flight when it was announced that they were jettisoning fuel & had to RTB.

Must have been a tense time 🙁

Tense! Say that again. Noticed something amiss when the flaps didn’t retract & we kept on circling. The crew was obviously somewhat engaged & it was some time before the Captain said they had a problem – but never in the whole flight told us what the problem was. Back at LHR we only picked up rumours. Credit to AM as they packed all of us to a decent hotel – with meal & wine thrown in. Before departure next day in the same aircraft – Captain announced he would double check the extension/retraction of the flaps.
I’ve never seen a report on this incident – is there one?

Why is that then??..sounds very strange to me!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_dumping

🙂

Paul

Done some probing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_dumping#Aircraft_fuel_dump

Depending on the type of aircraft! The None of the 737 variants, the 757 or the A320 family have fuel dump systems installed.
Paul

Why is that then??..sounds very strange to me!

Thanks for replies.

The aircraft I was thinking about was an A340. I know people on such a flight when it was announced that they were jettisoning fuel & had to RTB.

Must have been a tense time 🙁

I was on an Air Mauritius A340 from LHR in June 2004 that had flap retraction problems. Ended up circling off Brighton for 1/2 hour dumping fuel before landing back.

If a plane has to return to an airport to land ..fuel is dumped because of weight restrictions

Depending on the type of aircraft! The None of the 737 variants, the 757 or the A320 family have fuel dump systems installed. If one of these aircraft has a problem and needs to return to the airport it will generally circle for a while to burn fuel (unless the problem is severe enough to warrant and overweight landing but this isn’t as much of a problem for narrowbody aircraft as it is something like a 747 carrying around 150 tons of Jet A1).

It’s only really the larger widebody aircraft that can dump fuel although as I understand it, it’s an option on certain aircraft like the 767 and A310.

Paul

A planes landing weight is limited and much lower than its max takeoff weight.

If a plane takes off and immediately has a problem where it needs to land again straight away then it has to dump fuel to reduce its weight. The amount of fuel it carries is measured to make sure that it is not too full when it lands… enough to get to the landing area and about half an hours extra flight just in case it has to divert to another airfield.

The only other times a plane might dump fuel is at an airshow like the F-111, or in the case of a hydraulic or undercarriage failure where a fire is expected to reduce the amount of aviation fuel that could fuel a fire after a gear up landing.

Obviously its not good news when an announcement is made that the aircraft has had to jettison fuel & land again.

If a plane has to return to an airport to land ..fuel is dumped because of weight restrictions