8 minutes ago, Adrian123 said:

So..Pilot error?

I don't know and I certainly don't speculate. It's just very unusual to see an aircraft dumping fuel on final approach in landing configuration. 

I think I would find it a lot less amusing and eye-rolling if it was my kids being drenched with jet fuel with unknown medical results and bills from rashes, respiratory and other possible reactions.

Sign me up for that potential lawsuit. 

Well that video of the jet dumping while configured on approach certainly adds some mystery to this. 

Nobody got "drenched" with fuel.  The way some of the news reported it you'd think they were spraying Agent Orange.

I can just imagine the lawyers offices this morning...

Now son show this man that cough you were doing earlier
<Cough Cough>
No the one you were doing earlier
<Cough Cough>
No the one when you sounded like you were a cat coughing up a hair ball 🤣

I predict litigation from this will drag on for years

Edited January 15, 20206 yr by Matthew Kane

4 minutes ago, Matthew Kane said:

I can just imagine the lawyers offices this morning...

Now son show this man that cough you were doing early
Cough Cough
No the one you were doing earlier
Cough Cough
No the one when you sounded like you were a cat coughing up a hair ball 🤣

I predict litigation from this will drag on for years

I guess it's just not as amusing to me. But I come from a family heavy in law enforcement, and years after 911 they are dropping like flies from exposure many people had/have a similar attitude about. Officers dying of cancer is a constant drumbeat. (9 of my cousins fellow officers/friends just the last month)

It's definitely colored my attitudes as to whether people being exposed to harmful chemicals in whatever amount is something to be taken lightly.

18 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

I guess it's just not as amusing to me. But I come from a family heavy in law enforcement, and years after 911 they are dropping like flies from exposure many people had/have a similar attitude about. Officers dying of cancer is a constant drumbeat. (9 of my cousins fellow officers/friends just the last month)

It's definitely colored my attitudes as to whether people being exposed to harmful chemicals in whatever amount is something to be taken lightly.

I definitely agree with that, but it comes down to severity. I don't believe this was raining down on them but they could smell it, also when you do something like this over Los Angeles the majority of the lawsuits will be frivolous, and the number of those cases will far out number any legitimate case, which is why it will take years to sort through

Edited January 15, 20206 yr by Matthew Kane

I'd urge caution, as often needed in our modern era, against armchair quarter backing.  It's easy to pick apart actions over the course of hours with either incomplete information, or more information than they had at the moment.  When you're in the moment and have to make decision in seconds or minutes, it's hard to hash out every down stream effect.

The effect of exposure to the fuel is over exaggerated.  Gasoline can be a skin irritant, respiratory irritant, carcinogen, and so on, but the effects almost always require chronic exposure.  The amount of exposure from a vapor trail released from a couple thousand feet up at over two hundred miles an hour will account to little more than a splash while pumping gas.  It could cause harm, but this is a very small could.  

The first risk is real, but the time of exposure extremely small.  The fuel will vaporize and blow away within in minutes.  So could it happen?  Yes.  But it's unlikely in such a small time.

How do you balance these against the safety of 350 people on board the aircraft?  While flying the aircraft?  It's hard to know even when everyone is safe on the ground.  I doubt the pilots had any idea they were flying over a school.  I'm sure they communicated and did what they thought was best to protect the passengers they were responsible for.  777 pilots are not exactly a low flight hour, poor trained group of people (I know there can be bad apples anywhere).  

While brakes may get stressed the most on RTO, landing above MLW does places more stress from the impact of touchdown, which is not insignificant.  A snapped gear strut, blown tires, or structural overload may not be likely, but can be severe if they happen.

With all of that said, I do wonder: 1) Why didn't they climb higher?  Takeoff performance has contingencies for single engine climb and altitude can be traded for time or speed if things go south. With that said, MCT may limit the time you can climb and gain altitude. 2) It seems almost certain that they did land over weight and this was accepted, so what made them think the roughly 10k pounds of full was critical to shed?  It would seem that's a fairly insignificant amount of weight when you're working with a likely TOW in the ballpark of 600k pounds.  Not saying there weren't good reasons for these decisions, I just don't understand them right now. 

Edited January 15, 20206 yr by ESzczesniak

I have no idea what other kind of snakes they may have had with them in the cockpit, but at first blush of what has made the press, it does seem as though some rash decisions were made by the crew. They should have been certainly capable of climbing higher and holding somewhere. The 777 has big engines and remaining power should be more than sufficient to keep them aloft for the rest of the day.  This is not WWII in a B-17. You’re assured performance on a single engine. Every takeoff is planned for single engine climb. Departing lax and heading over the ocean is not exactly a terrain limiting situation either. So there really was no danger of hitting anything because of single engine performance. So take that away as pressure to return to base. I’m not a 777 guy, but max continuous power with a time limit would be an oxymoron of the term ‘continuous’. There should be no time limit to the use of max “continuous” power. So take that away as a pressure to return to base. These planes are all certified to actually land at max takeoff weight. An overweight landing is really not that critical. As long as you have long enough of a runway to stop. The runways at lax are plenty long. You really could go either way on that. Overweigh land or not. So I think any pressure to do anything because of weight would be entirely self induced. The only reason to rush back to a landing on an engine failure after takeoff is if you’re on fire or if you think there is something that could cause the failure of both engines, like encountering volcanic ash or contaminated fuel. But if there is no suspicion of some kind of common factor that could induce the failure of all your engines, you should take time to do things thoughtfully and correctly so as to avoid undesirable attention like this. From what I’ve read, they were first offered a holding pattern over the water to sort things out and dump fuel, which was declined in favor of an immediate return. Then while approaching the airport, they decided that they were going to dump fuel after all, and did it at 2000’ over the big yellow parts of the sectional chart. I don’t know much, but that just sounds like poor decision making on somebody’s part. The first bad decision was not taking some time in the holding pattern to dump fuel, the second, but worse decision, was to change your mind about the first decision.

Edited January 15, 20206 yr by KevinAu

7 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

 take into consideration that "safety" was compromised when aircraft were aloud to be built with a higher TakeOff weight than Landing weight..

Why should safety be compromised? Even 1930s aircraft like the DC-3 have a higher MTOW than MLW.

17 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Agree, NTSB and/or FAA will resolve ... but also take into consideration that "safety" was compromised when aircraft were aloud to be built with a higher TakeOff weight than Landing weight ... that's a shared responsibility the FAA and aircraft manufacturers have to be accountable for ... but it is an avoidable situation just not a profitable one.

Cheers, Rob.

 

We can land just fine at max takeoff weight. The planes are designed for it. We respect a lower max landing weight limitation for daily operations as a limitation for economic reasons. If we choose to land over that limitation, we have procedures for it.

Here's what arm chair types have to keep in mind.

In 21 years of flying, I have only dumped, well, adjusted gross weight once. In a heavy DC10 at almost max weight, we had a slat disagree light at lift off. We had already returned to parking twice due to an intermittent slat disagree light on taxi out. This scenario led to a slat disagree light when extending the slats after clean up at V2 plus 10. This called for a no slat landing with flaps, which had a hell of a approach speed and abnormal nose down approach. In the clean config, the jet was safe, so we had time to coordinate with ATC and get to a weight adjusting area. After the flight engineer ran some numbers, we decided to dump enough fuel to accomplish a flaps 22 approach which gave me a as close as possible to a normal landing picture on approach. no slats hurt you more than slats and no flaps. In fact the approach speed is lower with no flaps with slats. This is because you can't get enough AOA for the wing to produce more lift due to the slats being unavailable to guide airflow to the top of the wing at high AOAs. In this case, you have no choice but to adjust weight because your emergency return landing distance exceeds runway available due to the higher speeds for lift.  

In the DC10, it was standard to brief, dump from gear up to gear down during the take off brief. This is because you are planning on the worst case scenario. During takeoff data calculation, at least while I was Air Force and at my civil flying job, we calculate emergency return approach and landing data at takeoff weight. In this case, if it hits the fan at V1, you know you have the landing distance and approach speeds to pull closed and get her back on the ground. We would still dump to get as much off as possible. Only issue is you have to mind your sink rate when over max land weight. Usually limited to 300 feet per minute depending on AFM and type.

Now, a fire, control or thrust issue could drive you to have urgency to getting the jet back on the ground. Those are three things I don't play around with. In the DC10, I lose an engine, who cares. The jet was designed with two engines and the third one was an after thought. In a twin like the Gulfstreams I fly, I want it back on the ground. In this day and age, I don't know why I lost that reliable engine and that issue might impact my last engine.

There you have it, it's a judgment call. Some scenarios may lead you to want to dump, but in my case, I know runway availability is not an issue at takeoff, so I may elect not to dump. having 75% of fuel on or 25% of fuel looks ugly regardless with a fire/crash. In essence, we just try to fly a good jet at all times and minimize risks. You really can't fault this crew either way and fuel dumping is one of those necessary risks, that's why they made it. 

There's a sum-up of the flight here with ATC

Thank you for the sage words from people who know what they are talking about, both real pilots and non-pilot professionals alike.

I dread to think about the outcome if the triple seven had crashed and fireballed in a populated area, let alone on a school(s).

I know each human being is an individual, and children's skin is more sensitive than an adult's, but I've had my hand drenched in diesel (Discovery 2 TD5 fuel pump) and had petrol splashes on my skin, but have never developed a rash from any of those occasions. Even had an armful of gearbox oil (whoops!) 

On a slightly more amusing note.

I wonder if Delta will be getting laundry bills??

On a further amusing note: I was attending night school at college for a certificate in Motorcycle Maintenance (I passed BTW!). One of my classmates was an older chap who used to be a trawler captain - he had many a tale to tell! Yes, some may be taller than others, but still! The one which is most relevant to this discussion (kind of!) is when he had to repair a hole in his ship's fuel tank. Diesel as you know, isn't quite as touchy as the more volatile fuels. So, there he is, INSIDE the fuel tank, wading about dressed only in his undershorts! up to his nethers in diesel (big fuel tank!) with a welding torch. He was still alive to tell the tale and his ship was intact.. Obviously this generated an image we would like to forget LOL! Especially if you knew Ken 

It's a good job that airliners don't dump fuel like this...

 

2 hours ago, HighBypass said:

I wonder if Delta will be getting laundry bills??

You mean from soiled undergarments?  Possibly.