According to the Australian Federal Police, a then-32-year-old man from Western Australia was disruptive on a flight headed from Perth to Sydney. As a result, the plane had to turn around and go back to Perth, which meant that the pilot was forced to dump some fuel to land.
Now, the passenger has been ordered to pay $8,630 AUD ($5,806 USD) back to the airline to cover the cost of the wasted fuel. The Perth Magistrate Court also fined him $6,055, meaning that his mid-air misbehavior has a total price tag of $11,861 – likely many times higher than whatever h
So does “dump fuel” literally mean “sprinkle a large volume of jet fuel over a large swathe of countryside?” Does it become diffuse enough that the environmental impact is negligible, or do we get a big splash that kills everything in an AoE?
Like… I’m surprised the fuel cost is the focus here, and not the environmental impact of releasing jet fuel just… into the air I guess? But maybe it doesn’t work the way I’m picturing.
That’s exactly right. But much evaporates or is diffused over such a large area that no one particular piece of land gets a significant amount.
The alternative is landing overweight, risking potential damage or failure to the aircraft’s landing gear, full of human lives, while still full of the explodey stuff.
The other alternative is designing planes to land at heavier weights, resulting in every other flight being less efficient.
Thanks… Yeah that makes sense. I can understand that sometimes the trade-off would make dumping fuel the right choice… I just wonder if the environmental impact factor in.
Dumping fuel is not uncommon.
The plane needs to be a certain weight to land and so fuel burn is calculated into that.
Obviously planes don’t intend to dump fuel but there are unforeseen circumstances which mean necessitate this.
It’s hard to say but I should imagine dilution, has a large impact on any sort of environmental concerns.
jet fuel isn’t dumped that rarely, it diffuses over an enormous area and isn’t significantly harmful to the ground, but is a greenhouse “gas” source iirc.