How and why aircraft fuel is dropped from planes

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Everyone has heard at least once that airplanes during flight, for one reason or another, can discharge fuel. It is not difficult to guess, even without special knowledge, that any such discharge is an emergency, compulsory measure. However, it doesn't get any easier from realizing this.

What happens to kerosene? Does he really have every chance of falling on people's heads?

The Boeing 747 has a fuel tank capacity of 198.3 tons of fuel. At the same time, for one hour of flight, the aircraft consumes at least 10.5 tons of fuel. The specificity of the design of any aircraft is such that its mass on takeoff should be greater than at the time of landing. In other words, the allowable take-off weight of any aircraft is always higher than the allowable landing weight.

This allows aircraft to be loaded with cargo and passengers "in excess" of the norm. In this case, the required landing mass is achieved due to the banal and obvious thing that most of the fuel will burn out during the flight.

Of course, anything happens, and the plane may need an emergency landing due to a technical malfunction or health problems of someone on board.

At this point, it may turn out that the mass of the aircraft has not yet reached the permissible landing value. Failure to do so will lead to disaster at the time of landing. This problem is solved in an emergency by dumping fuel. Pilots preliminarily report to the control room about the coordinates, altitude and the fact of the drop. In rare cases, they can be prohibited from this, forcing them to go to a safe area or height.

The fuel itself is discharged through a special nozzle that disperses it into tiny droplets. Dumping of fuel is allowed only in specially designated places. To minimize exposure to residential areas, we also must not harm people on the ground.

Aviation kerosene is an extremely volatile and very light fuel that evaporates quite quickly, especially when dispersed in the air. Most often, the fuel simply does not reach the ground, being evenly sprayed and evaporated in the air. By itself, kerosene does not disappear without a trace.

Its vapors will fly across the sky for a long time until they finally settle or fall out with rain or snow on the ground in extremely low concentration. In rare cases, the discharge of kerosene will cause the formation of short-term smog.

Modern aircraft, unlike their predecessors, are equipped with an emergency landing system when overweight, which gives pilots the opportunity not to make an emergency discharge of excess fuel. After such a landing, the aircraft undergoes a thorough check in order to eliminate the problems that have arisen and to make sure that the aircraft is fully operational and ready to fly.

There are also emergency situations when fuel can be dumped in populated areas, for example, on January 15, 2020, the aircraft fuel was dropped by the crew of a passenger plane of the American airline Delta Air Lines during an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport. 26 people, including 17 children, were "slightly injured", the Los Angeles County Fire Department reported.