The impacts of some fuel reaching the ground were immediately visible to the population of Memphis in the United States who reported that “tiny dots appear to have burned onto leaves of all types of plants, and they appear different depending on the plant” while “on other plants, a white dust speckles the leaves and then destroys the green life underneath”. If jet fuel were to routinely hit the ground it would pollute water resources and land, as well as damage crops and biodiversity. Exposure to benzene alone could affect plants by slowing their growth or even leading to their decay it can also easily break down contaminate groundwater. So there would be several risk if these kind of chemical mixtures came into contact with water resources, farmland or even urban greenspace. Jet fuel is made up of various toxic hydrocarbons including benzene, which has been linked to cancer, but it also contains a number of additives including biocides to control bacterial and fungal growth in aircraft fuel systems. But if the liquid fuel reaches the ground, there is a potential for negative environmental consequences such as crop damage or water pollution. So, as analysis has shown, the effect of the evaporated fuel vapours in the atmosphere is negligible assuming the fuel is highly volatile and both pilot and air traffic controllers have ensured that fuel dumping does not happen unless a specific altitude has been reached.Īccording to the IPPC report, even if aircrafts also occasionally introduce hydrocarbons by jettisoning fuel at low altitudes in the troposphere, there is only a small increase of hydrocarbons in the region as the fuel evaporates. The good news is that aircraft fuel, in particular what is used by the US Air Force, is highly volatile so it evaporates quickly. In contrast, US Air Force dumps fuel about 1,000 times a year with 7000 metric tons of fuel released to the atmosphere each year. While according to British Airways estimates quoted in the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) report on “Aviation and the Global Atmosphere” published in 1999 “only a very small percentage (on the order of 0.01%) of fuel used by the aviation industry each year is jettisoned”, the US Environmental Protection Agency also regards fuel dumping as a very rare occurrence that airlines do not promote as it is not economically prudent to waste fuel.
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Is fuel dumping safe for the environment? The same applies to military aircraft with most air bases only permitting fuel dumping in specified areas.
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What is more if a fuel dump operation needs to occur, air traffic controllers are instructed to direct planes away from populated areas and over large bodies of water as much as possible. The speed with which fuel can be dumped varies but as an indication it is worth bearing in mind that the Boeing 747 dump rate for fuel ranges from one to two tonnes per minute. Moreover, fuel dumping usually takes place at a high enough altitude so that the fuel will dissipate before reaching the ground. When there is a need and capacity to proceed with fuel dumping this is coordinated with air traffic control, and precautions are taken to keep other aircraft clear of such areas. For example, a Boeing 757 has no fuel dump capability as its maximum landing weight is similar to its maximum take-off weight. Jets flying with US airlines in the 1950s and early 1960s tended to have fuel dump systems but today, a lot of planes do not have this feature as they are designed with possible overweight landings in mind. To avoid this and maximise passenger safety, some aircrafts can dump excess fuel. As such, landing with that extra weight could cause damage to the aircraft.
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In such a situation, the aircraft is unlikely to have burn off enough fuel to make it lighter and for its weight to be within the maximum structural landing weight. This could happen if the aircraft needs to change course or return to its point of departure. īarring the circumstances when fuel is dumped and burnt for entertainment reasons, the practice of “fuel dumping” occurs when for one reason or the other an aircraft needs to land but its weight exceeds the maximum structural landing weight. Sometimes, this same concept of fuel dumping is used in what is called “a dump-and-burn” when fuel is ignited intentionally using the plane’s afterburner to create a spectacular flame for air shows or as a finale to fireworks.