Do planes eject fuel before landing?

Fuel dumping (or a fuel jettison) is a procedure used by aircraft in certain emergency situations before a return to the airport shortly after takeoff, or before landing short of the intended destination (emergency landing) to reduce the aircraft's weight.



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Airlines find that fuel dumping can actually be cheaper than not dumping in certain circumstances. But it's not something pilots do on a routine basis. We spoke with Alison Duquette, spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), who assured us that it doesn't happen very often.

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Fuel is a must for an aircraft. Without fuel, the engines won't work. If the plane runs out of fuel while in the air, the plane must be refuelled. Otherwise, the plane will crash.

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In most cases, airlines only dump air in midair immediately before landing. They don't do it before or during takeoff, nor do they do it halfway through their flight. Rather, airlines may dump some of their airplane's excess fuel immediately before landing so that it lowers the weight of their aircraft.

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Over a certain altitude it is always considered safe to dump fuel. The high speed of the airplane means the fuel is spread very thin and will evaporate before it hits the ground. Accidents do of course happen where it is not possible to safely dump fuel and they end up dumping over populated areas.

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The maximum landing weight (MLW) is the maximum aircraft gross weight due to design or operational limitations at which an aircraft is permitted to land. The MLW is set in order to ensure safe landings; if an aircraft weighs too heavy during touchdown, it may suffer structural damage or even break apart upon landing.

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Flying at a typical altitude of 36,000 feet (about seven miles), an aircraft that loses both engines will be able to travel for another 70 miles before reaching the ground.

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A tanker jet refuels other planes in midair through a process called aerial refueling or air-to-air refueling. The process begins with the two aircraft closing in on each other midair, with the two aircraft maintaining a distance of 100 feet or less between each other.

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The aircraft flares just before touching down. It descends with a constant velocity, and just before touching down pulls the nose up to reduce the descent. This results in a higher angle of attack, more lift, and a vertical deceleration of the airplane.

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Fuel dumping (or a fuel jettison) is a procedure used by aircraft in certain emergency situations before a return to the airport shortly after takeoff, or before landing short of the intended destination (emergency landing) to reduce the aircraft's weight.

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Typically in the case of an emergency landing, the plane will be landing somewhere well short of its destination. If it has not been flying long enough to burn off enough fuel to get below the maximum landing weight, they need to dump fuel in order to land safely.

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Fuel dumps are instructed under FAA guidance to be done over remote or oceanic areas, or at an altitude at which the dumped fuel can atomize before reaching the ground, although such guidance may be bypassed in dire emergencies, according to the FAA.

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When 150 or more passengers are loaded onto the plane, they produce more heat and humidity. Preboarding, aircraft will often use external units to pump air preconditioned to a temperature considered acceptable to passengers, usually around 70 degrees.

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“There is not a specific temperature,” says Tom Haines, Senior Vice President of Media, Communications & Outreach at the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA).

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In these cases, the airplane may arrive at the landing airport at a weight considerably above the maximum design landing weight. The pilot must then decide whether to reduce the weight prior to landing or land overweight. The weight can be reduced either by holding to burn off fuel or by jettisoning fuel.

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Pilots can and sometimes do smoke in the cockpits of business jets. These can be as large as airliners (see BBJ), but usually aren't. Even when a country and/or airline ban smoking in the flight deck, some pilots will ignore the ban and still light up.

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The truck plugs a hose into the airplane's waste tank valve and removes all of the waste into the tank on the back of the truck. The truck then takes the waste to a special area at the airport reserved for the waste from all aeroplanes, and the toilet waste is emptied into the sewer system for that airport.

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There are multiple reasons a plane can break up in mid-air, according to Landsberg, including over stress, turbulence, aircraft fatigue and corrosion.

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