
Elementary school kids doused as jet dumps fuel before LAX emergency landing - fortran77
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-01-14/plane-dumps-fuel-on-students-on-school-playground-en-route-to-lax-officials-say
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aphextim
Pretty sure that dumping fuel can be quite common when there is a critical
malfunction before they return to land. As someone pointed out they would
prefer to keep the fuel because it is expensive and they really don't want to
dump over populated areas. I would rather have some kids have to take a
shower, than have 140+ passengers killed in a possible explosion. Also the Jet
Fuel would have been pretty dispersed by the time it reached them vs someone
who is fueling an aircraft with it.

The MSDS sheet on Jet Fuel

[http://www.usor.com/files/pdf/4/Jet%20Fuel%20-%20SDS%20941%2...](http://www.usor.com/files/pdf/4/Jet%20Fuel%20-%20SDS%20941%20-%20130709.pdf)

From the article:

>A total of 60 patients were treated, at least 20 of them children. The Los
Angeles County Fire Department said more than 70 firefighters and paramedics
headed to Park School Elementary, where 20 children and 11 adults were treated
for minor injuries. No one was taken to the hospital.

So 20 children and 11 adults treated for minor injuries and not one was
hospitalized vs not ejecting the fuel and possibly causing an explosion upon
landing for 140+ passengers.

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jfengel
Diluted how? As in, dispersed in air, so they got misted rather than drenched?

(If so, "doused" is a poor choice of words for the headline, though par for
the course in modern journalism.)

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aphextim
Dispersed was the word I was looking for. Nothing was added to the fuel to
dilute.

I incorrectly use Diluted probably because I had an old roommate was in water
tech always use the phrase jokingly, "The solution to pollution is dilution".

I will edit my post to be correct.

~~~
jfengel
Ah, sorry. Hadn't meant to be pedantic. I was just wondering if perhaps there
was some sort of dilution process applied to jet fuel, maybe for safety
reasons.

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goodcanadian
An ATC recording of the incident is here:

[https://youtu.be/mIA90evz8gs](https://youtu.be/mIA90evz8gs)

The issue was a compressor stall on one of the engines. Not critical, by the
pilot's own admission. ATC offered a hold over the water to dump fuel, which
would have been a normal thing to do. Fuel dumping is normally coordinated by
ATC. It was declined as unnecessary.

Then, suddenly, they are dumping at low altitude over a city (which is to be
avoided if at all possible). Now, I don't know for sure what happened in the
final minutes. Dumping fuel is certainly better than crashing, but it is hard
to understand how the crew got into that situation given what happened
earlier. There are still questions to be answered.

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metanoia
I listened to the ATC tapes on LiveATC (and now can be found compiled by
VASAviation on YouTube).

When DL98 first declare an emergency, Socal asks the crew if they need to dump
fuel and they indicate they do not, but end up doing it anyway, even at low
altitudes. Something happened along the way that made them decide to dump fuel
and try to get under max landing weight, but when you're single engine, you
want to get down on a runway ASAP as you don't know that the problem affecting
one engine won't happen to the other.

I am not a 777 driver, but an overweight landing is always an option - in
fact, required when you're single-engine. Checklists for engine out say "land
at nearest suitable airport." Holding and dumping/burning fuel is, in my
limited knowledge, reserved for instances where there is a fault that prevents
forward progress but does not necessitate an emergency landing.

Can't think of any examples off the top of my head right now though.

