Originally Posted by
retired guy
Does anyone in this thread actually fly a long haul commercial jet? I often wonder at some of the comments?
people seem to make statements rather than ask questions for the experienced aviators to answer eg “ some kids doused in fuel is better than a smoking hole”!
1 overweight landings even up to max takeoff weight are approved in an emergency. Example fire on board.
all that’s required is an inspection.
2 dumping fuel gets you down to max landing weight , or near it, and is recommended if possible.
3 dumping should be conducted at higher altitudes >6ooo ft and over non built up areas and in a straight flight path
4 weight is not critical to safety generally unless on a short limiting runway. On a large jet 2 tones of weight = approx 1 knot.
In short the decision to land overweight depends on the severity of the emergency and the runway length/conditions.
I can think of no excuse at all for dumping so low as shown in the video.
As for the hypothesis that “they forgot”- well OMG. Has pilot training/skills set really sunk that low? I know that in the next 25 years 500,000 pilots are required mainly in developing world. Now there’s a challenge.
R Guy
Forgetting is pretty easy in a high workload environment. Its pretty easy to reach task saturation when you're dealing with an engine failure over a populated area in very busy airspace at a congested airport.
This can happen to anyone at any time, just takes a single task more than you can deal with and this has happened in the past to very experienced air crew, eastern 401 is an example of this, unfortunately there the pilots forgot to aviate first.