Thomas Cook Flight Fuel Leak
Discussion
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-...
A collegue of mine was on this flight from Turin which had to make an emergency landing due to a faulty valve resulting in gallons of fuel
pumped out of the right wing..
How dangerous is this situation? Does it happen regulary?
A collegue of mine was on this flight from Turin which had to make an emergency landing due to a faulty valve resulting in gallons of fuel
pumped out of the right wing..How dangerous is this situation? Does it happen regulary?
In a sense, a self-healing situation - in order to get back below max landing weight, one option is to dump even more fuel overboard.
I can't remember the exact details, but there was one famous - possibly apocryphal - incident when an American airliner experienced some difficulties climbing out of Heathrow, and the crew informed the controllers that they were going to commence dumping fuel immediately. When informed that dumping fuel at low-level over Windsor, and over the Castle in particular, was only to be carried out in an extreme emergency, the Captain asked "if Her Majesty wanted the just fuel, or the entire aricraft" to land on the Castle.
Edited: not sure if that particular aircraft would have been fitted with a fuel dump system though...
I can't remember the exact details, but there was one famous - possibly apocryphal - incident when an American airliner experienced some difficulties climbing out of Heathrow, and the crew informed the controllers that they were going to commence dumping fuel immediately. When informed that dumping fuel at low-level over Windsor, and over the Castle in particular, was only to be carried out in an extreme emergency, the Captain asked "if Her Majesty wanted the just fuel, or the entire aricraft" to land on the Castle.
Edited: not sure if that particular aircraft would have been fitted with a fuel dump system though...
Edited by eharding on Thursday 25th February 13:30
eharding said:
When informed that dumping fuel at low-level over Windsor, and over the Castle in particular, was only to be carried out in an extreme emergency, the Captain asked "if Her Majesty wanted the just fuel, or the entire aricraft" to land on the Castle.
Must have been what fuelled the fire in 1992. 
AFAIK, the 757 doesn't have a fuel jettison system. It would potentially need to stooge around for a while to reduce below maximum landing weight. In extremis, there is no reason why you cannot land above maximum landing weight but it would require an incident of some urgency for that to become necessary. This particular incident probably wasn't.
JW911 said:
AFAIK, the 757 doesn't have a fuel jettison system. It would potentially need to stooge around for a while to reduce below maximum landing weight.
That's not clever is it? If something goes seriously wrong and you have to get down fast you don't want to land full of fuel - it may not be a controlled landing...Simpo Two said:
JW911 said:
AFAIK, the 757 doesn't have a fuel jettison system. It would potentially need to stooge around for a while to reduce below maximum landing weight.
That's not clever is it? If something goes seriously wrong and you have to get down fast you don't want to land full of fuel - it may not be a controlled landing...Best of it was; the following day once the aircraft had been repaired, they kindly had a fighter escort over french airspace....mmmmmm something not quite right me thinks 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R2hwbr_0jI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R2hwbr_0jI
jenkotvr said:
Best of it was; the following day once the aircraft had been repaired, they kindly had a fighter escort over french airspace....mmmmmm something not quite right me thinks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R2hwbr_0jI
Were french air traffic control on strike that day?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R2hwbr_0jI
jenkotvr said:
Best of it was; the following day once the aircraft had been repaired, they kindly had a fighter escort over french airspace...
Escorts protect; those were there to shoot you down if you suddenly started heading for the Eiffel Tower...Or were they just spotters for another fuel leak?
Edited by Simpo Two on Friday 26th February 15:28
I've been on a plane that decided to leak fuel once. It was a Virgin 747 about to leave McCarran International in Las Vegas to fly back to the UK. If I remember correctly we made it to the runway and then the engines were switched off! If you looked out of the window you could see fuel pouring out of the left wing! We had all the fire engines etc out and we got towed off the runway off to what must have been a holding area. We were left stuck on the tarmac with no air conditioning or ventilation for 2 hours while they presumably did some checks. They then towed us back to the gate.
It was roasting by the time we got let off. The "larger" passengers from the back of the plane had sweat pouring off their faces by the time they made it out. We had to stay at the gate until the crew had run out of sufficient hours to get us back and then we all got put up in hotels overnight.
When it came to leave the next day everything was fine and we left on time. It turns out that it was just the fuel tank overflow and the ground crew had overfilled the tank for whatever reason.
That wasn't the worst experience I've had on a plane though. I was coming back from Chicago once and we were struck by lightning while we were climbing through the clouds. All of the lights, in flight entertainment etc for our section of the cabin went out! I was wondering "if this has all stopped working what else has broken?" but we kept going and made it back with no problems. In the end it just made a boring flight even more boring as I couldn't read. At least we didn't fall out of the sky.
It was roasting by the time we got let off. The "larger" passengers from the back of the plane had sweat pouring off their faces by the time they made it out. We had to stay at the gate until the crew had run out of sufficient hours to get us back and then we all got put up in hotels overnight.
When it came to leave the next day everything was fine and we left on time. It turns out that it was just the fuel tank overflow and the ground crew had overfilled the tank for whatever reason.
That wasn't the worst experience I've had on a plane though. I was coming back from Chicago once and we were struck by lightning while we were climbing through the clouds. All of the lights, in flight entertainment etc for our section of the cabin went out! I was wondering "if this has all stopped working what else has broken?" but we kept going and made it back with no problems. In the end it just made a boring flight even more boring as I couldn't read. At least we didn't fall out of the sky.
Simpo Two said:
gingerpaul said:
In the end it just made a boring flight even more boring as I couldn't read. At least we didn't fall out of the sky.
Yep, if the engines had failed you'd have been stuck up there all night!
jenkotvr said:
Best of it was; the following day once the aircraft had been repaired, they kindly had a fighter escort over french airspace....mmmmmm something not quite right me thinks
On the other side of the aircraft tho' isn't it. Those french pilots must me good to see the bottom of the right wing from a position above the left, me thinks.......Loss of communications over France, maybe caused by selecting the wrong radio frequency......... Not the first & won't be the last.
Ginetta G15 Girl said:
Simpo Two said:
Yep, if the engines had failed you'd have been stuck up there all night!
I'm intrigued as to why you think a lightning strike would cause all the engines to fail.Edited by Simpo Two on Saturday 27th February 07:24
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