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Elementary school kids doused as jet dumps fuel before LAX emergency landing
An airplane returning to Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday morning dropped jet fuel onto a school playground, dousing several students at Park Avenue Elementary School in Cudahy, officials said.
Delta Flight 89 — a Boeing 777 — had taken off from LAX with more than 140 passengers on board and was en route to Shanghai when it turned around and headed back to the L.A. airport.
“Shortly after takeoff, Flight 89 from LAX to Shanghai experienced an engine issue requiring the aircraft to return to LAX,” Delta spokesperson Adrian Gee said. “The aircraft landed safely after an emergency fuel release to reduce landing weight.”
Shortly before this plane landed at LAX, it dumped what's believed to be fuel on an elementary school playground, hitting several students.
I read about this thinking “man I hope it wasn’t a Boeing”. Too bad. They’ll catch some heat in the court of public opinion despite this having little to do with their plane.
Presumably, dumping fuel - even over a populated area - was deemed to entail less net risk than landing heavy (and bound for Shanghai, it was probably well over maximum landing weight).
The reports I heard questioned why the plane was dumping fuel at such a low altitude. The report stated that there is an accepted minimum altitude that allows the fuel to evaporate before reaching ground level.
I thought they were only supposed to dump fuel over unpopulated areas.
They are. There are designated areas near major airports for fuel dumps. That was not a designated area.
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But apparently they are allowed to do it at low elevation over the city too.
"Allowed"? No. But it was an emergency, and the crew is given a lot of leeway in an emergency.
However.... early on in the emergency (when the plane was still northwest of LAX) ATC departure asked if the flight needed to hold (circle) over the water for a fuel dump, and the crew declined. At this point it's just a guess, but one possible scenario is that the crew believed they could get the engine working again before landing. It wasn't until final that they realized they would need to land on one engine, and for that they needed to dump fuel.
But I'd say the captain has some explaining to do. The plane is ETOPS rated (required for any twin engine trans-continental flight) which means it can operate safely on one engine. Why didn't they shut down the failing engine, hold over water and dump fuel for a safe return to LAX? Why, on final, did they decide to dump the fuel and land rather than climb and get somewhere safe for the fuel dump? For the second question I suspect it was already too late for them to climb to a safe altitude and they were committed to landing. But it's possible that different decisions earlier in the emergency could have kept them out of that situation entirely.
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