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First time I have heard of this type of incident with a fuel dump.

17 children treated after Delta flight dumps jet fuel near L.A. elementary schools

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BY EMERALD BENSADOUN GLOBAL NEWS
Posted January 14, 2020 2:55 pm
. . Global News

The Los Angeles County Fire Department said they are treating 17 children and nine adults for minor injuries after an “apparent fuel dump” by an aircraft near two elementary schools.

In a tweet, firefighters said an aircraft on its final approach to L.A. dumped the jet fuel to lighten the plane’s load.

Chanel 7 Eyewitness News reported a Delta Airlines flight had to return to Los Angeles International Airport shortly after takeoff and was dumping fuel on its return.

 

MCI | FS163 | 8000 Park Ave #Cudahy | BN 13 and 3 units on-scene elementary school assessing multiple patients after apparent fuel dump by aircraft on final approach to LAX hits playground.

Fire officials said they were called to an area close to Cudahy and South Los Angeles elementary schools late Tuesday afternoon after reports came in for the smell of jet fuel.

They said 70 firefighters and paramedics were on scene assessing multiple patients, adding that there were no transports to local hospital from the schools.

The fire department said there were no evacuation orders for the immediate area.

© 2020 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
 
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Dumping fuel on final approach?  I don’t fly an airplane that has the capability but AFAIK, there are strict rules regarding where an airplane is allowed to dump fuel.  I can’t imagine it’s anywhere near an airport on its final approach.  Emergencies excepted of course.

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11 minutes ago, vanishing point said:

Dumping fuel on final approach?  I don’t fly an airplane that has the capability but AFAIK, there are strict rules regarding where an airplane is allowed to dump fuel.  I can’t imagine it’s anywhere near an airport on its final approach.  Emergencies excepted of course.

Once an emergency is declared, Bob's your uncle for things like this. As it was a Shanghai flight, even with the jettison that we see in the video, they were probably still quite overweight for landing. Not a big deal with the proper post-landing inspection.

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Hate armchair quarterbacking, but I don't see them on fire, so not sure what the big rush was to get back on the ground if they were concerned about landing weight, and what would justify dumping fuel over the city on final. However, if they had one down and abnormal indications on the other (i.e. they flew thru a flock of birds and sucked a bunch into both stoves) then that would do it for me: get on the ground asap and get as light as possible while doing so (though I'm not familiar with the 777 limitations and how "big of a deal" overweight landings are).

I guess we'll have to wait for the report to find out the reasoning,

5 hours ago, Moon The Loon said:

Once an emergency is declared, Bob's your uncle for things like this.

Presumably we would only dump fuel in an emergency, not as a matter of course, would we not? :D (and there are guidelines for where and how to dump it, lots of open water that they turned away from to get on downwind...)

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13 hours ago, Marshall said:

Link to video showing a two engine aircraft dumping fuel. The aircraft was evidently going from LAX to Shanghai 

https://www.ajc.com/news/breaking-delta-flight-makes-emergency-landing-lax-after-reported-fuel-dump-near-playground/Xi89BlQ5JoOaBnHCXOsHNK/

 

 

The article is clearly tugging at the emotional heart strings.  Elementary schools are located in populated areas. why only mention them?

"40 Injured..." injured how?  Je fuel has a very strong odour. We all know this.  When atomized at a low altitude you will get a very strong smell over a wide area.  Sure its not great and it stinks but "Injured"?  Go home, get some fresh air and take a shower.  I spent most of my career covered in Jet fuel. not fun but I was never "injured" by it.

While things were done wrong here, it is a little over blown

 

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13 hours ago, Moon The Loon said:

Oh wait now its 60 people.  All in only the elementary schools?  The plane dumped fuel over several MILES from altitude and the fuel magically decended only on Elementary schools.  No High Schools, Middle Schools or vocational schools?  How about a Wal-Mart?  Chick-Fil-A?  McDonalds?  

Strange it only affected Elementary schools.  I wonder what the physics is behind that?

 

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3 hours ago, boestar said:

  I wonder what the physics is behind that?

Coincidence?

Quote

The incident rattled the community. Environmental injustices have long taken place in southeast Los Angeles County. For years, activists and residents fought for the closure of a battery recycling plant in the industrial city of Vernon because it emitted cancer-causing arsenic and lead, a potent neurotoxin, into nearby cities.

It was only five years ago that the plant was closed.

In the 1990s, Park Avenue Elementary School was closed for eight months because a tar-like petroleum substance seeped from the ground. The school was built on an old city dump site that contained contaminated soil with pockets of the toxic sludge.

“Why is it always our communities having to deal with the brunt of these issues?” Alcantar said.

 

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3 hours ago, boestar said:

Oh wait now its 60 people.  All in only the elementary schools?  The plane dumped fuel over several MILES from altitude and the fuel magically decended only on Elementary schools.  No High Schools, Middle Schools or vocational schools?  How about a Wal-Mart?  Chick-Fil-A?  McDonalds?  

Strange it only affected Elementary schools.  I wonder what the physics is behind that?

 

Not to say that there aren't SOME legitimate exposure claims, but the 'physics' of who and (the increasing number of) how many have less to do with aviation and more to do with the court system.  Cue the class action lawsuit.

Edited to add:, I sure hope none of those affected are ever on the bridge the next time a fueller comes up to give us our fuel slip.   I can't imagine how they would fare in that collateral fume environment - oh the humanity.... (rant off)

Vs

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2 hours ago, Vsplat said:

Edited to add:, I sure hope none of those affected are ever on the bridge the next time a fueller comes up to give us our fuel slip.   I can't imagine how they would fare in that collateral fume environment - oh the humanity.... (rant off)

I know how you feel. We were being fueled, (A-310), starboard wing and both of us were in our seats when the fuel line exploded at the nozzle that was connected to the aircraft. As neither of us were looking out we did not see the action but the poor, pretty wet,  fueller  rushed up and into the flight deck  and told us he had a problem. .Geeeze the fumes would kill a horse...

We had to  abandoned the aircraft as some of the fuel went into the cargo hold...needed a new aircraft (2 hour delay)

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Los Angeles (CNN)A day after a Delta Air Lines plane dumped jet fuel over several Los Angeles schools, federal authorities said the pilots of Delta Flight 89 did not ask for approval to release the fuel as part of their emergency landing.

Air crews will typically notify air traffic control of an emergency and indicate they need to dump fuel, the Federal Aviation Administration said. Air traffic controllers direct the plane to the appropriate fuel-dumping area.
"A review of yesterday's air traffic control communications shows the Delta Flight 89 crew did not tell air traffic control that they needed to dump fuel," the FAA said in a statement.
Delta spokesman Adrian Gee said the airline didn't have comment because the investigation is ongoing.
According to the audio of the conversation between a Delta pilot and an air traffic controller, posted on the website LiveATC.net, the pilot said the flight would return to Los Angeles International Airport because one engine had compressor stalls.
Pilot: "We've got it back under control. We're going to come back to LAX. We're not critical. We're going to slow to 280 knots, and uh, why don't you point us downwind at 8,000 feet (unintelligible) and we'll turn back to LA."
Tower: "OK, so you don't need to hold or dump fuel or anything like that?"
Pilot: "Uh, negative."
The FAA also said the fuel dumping procedure did not occur at the optimal altitude that would have allowed the fuel to atomize properly.
Fire crews treated 60 people after the fuel fell over five elementary schools and one high school Tuesday, said inspector Sean Ferguson of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
 
 
Children at six schools were affected by the fuel dump.

Did this have to happen?

 
The Boeing 777-200 was headed to Shanghai, China, Delta said. It had 181 people on board, according to radio traffic.
"The aircraft landed safely after a release of fuel, which was required as part of normal procedure to reach a safe landing weight," the airline said.
There are maximum takeoff and landing weights for aircraft, so for a plane with full fuel tanks to land, it must dump the fuel to avoid potentially crashing upon landing, said CNN aviation safety analyst David Soucie.
After hearing the transmissions between the tower and the pilot, Soucie said, "The situation is a failure to communicate." The air traffic controller should have asked the question about holding or dumping fuel without using the word "don't," and he should have repeated the questions, Soucie said.
The pilot said the engine was under control so he could have taken the plane over the Pacific Ocean to dump fuel or burn it off, Soucie, a former FAA safety inspector, said.
Soucie said the pilots might have forgotten to dump the fuel until the final approach while doing a pre-landing checklist and discovered the weight of the plane was too heavy. And rather than go around the airport again to drop elsewhere, they might have decided to dump it over land.
According to the FAA, which is investigating Tuesday's incident, there are special fuel-dumping procedures for aircraft operating into and out of major US airports.
"These procedures call for fuel to be dumped over designated unpopulated areas, typically at higher altitudes so the fuel atomizes and disperses before it reaches the ground," according to the FAA.
Had the plane been at 8,000 feet when the dump occurred, the fuel would never have hit the schools because it would be atomized after leaving the wings, Soucie said.
It is "very rare (fuel is dumped) at a lower altitude where it reaches the ground," he said.

Fuel has evaporated

Those doused by the jet fuel were decontaminated with soap and water and did not need to be hospitalized, said Sgt. Rudy Perez of the Los Angeles School Police Department.
 
 
Officials said Wednesday it was safe for children to return to the schools affected by the jet fuel.
The children changed from their clothes and wore gowns.
Park Avenue Elementary fifth grader Justin Guiti said the fuel sprayed all over him and got into his eye.
"Drops of water were coming down. I thought it was a rainbow, and I looked up and it was gasoline," he said.
Miguel Cervantes, a sixth grader, said his skin itched afterward.
"I thought it was smoke, but when it went down, I felt it and it smelled like gas," he said.
The affected schools had normal schedules Wednesday. All the jet fuel has since evaporated, the fire department said.
"With the monitoring devices that we have, there are no explosive limits that are being detected at all, as well as solid or liquid products remaining," Los Angeles County Fire Department Battalion Chief Jason Robertson said.
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Interesting that some posters are implying that people on the ground are over reacting after a couple of professional pilots dumped fuel on them. I'm even more surprised that the two professional idiots were able to maintain control of the airplane on final since the emergency must have been extremely dire. I have been doused in JP4 and  it wasn't very nice. I hope it never happens to my grand-daughter.

Calling them idiots is my over reaction.........after carefully reconsidering the incident and not knowing all the facts I would like to retract the idiot call in favour of just two average pilots with limited situational awareness skills and tenuous grasps of basic airmanship being put in a situation where they fell in love with checklists and the peter principle came into play. 

Now that is a rant!

 

 

 

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Delta Air Lines sued by California teachers over fuel dump

  • 1 hour ago

Four teachers are suing Delta Air Lines after one of its aircraft dumped fuel over schools as it made an emergency landing.

The flight was forced to return to Los Angeles International Airport because of engine problems.

Delta confirmed the plane had dumped the fuel to reduce its landing weight. Nearly 60 people were treated at six local schools, many of them children.

The four teachers are now seeking unspecified damages over the incident.

"The plaintiffs could feel the fuel on their clothes, their flesh, their eyes and their skin," a lawyer for the teachers said, adding that the fuel "penetrated their mouths and noses as well, producing a lasting and severe irritation".

The teachers filed the suit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday. According to the Los Angeles Times, the suit says jet fuel is dangerous to humans and cites the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Delta has yet to comment on the lawsuit.

The flight was bound for Shanghai. It landed safely shortly after the fuel dump, with all 167 passengers and crew unharmed.

Map: Flight path of Delta Airlines flight 89 Presentational white space

Delta has already been cited by the South Coast Air Quality Management District for a violation. The agency characterised the fuel dump as a public nuisance.

It comes after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) launched an investigation into the incident immediately after Tuesday's emergency landing.

Aviation rules say that planes can dump fuel in emergency landings, but only over designated areas and at a high altitude.

On Wednesday, the FAA said the crew had released the fuel without telling air traffic control.

A transcript of radio transmissions made public after the incident revealed that the pilot had initially told controllers there was no need to dump, before later releasing the fuel.

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3 hours ago, boestar said:

Still baffles me how it only affected schools in the area.

Please explain the physics.

 

Well, obviously it didn't only affect the schools but think about it, what will make the most dramatic headlines; a few random people exposed who happened to be outside (not in their houses, not in their cars) or schoolchildren? 

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Thats basically my point.  The whole thing is sensationalist reporting with basis in reality.

This is why I hate todays news.  It is not fact based reporting it is who can get the most clicks.

 

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