Originally Posted by
NeverFirst
That's a hell of a lot of fuel to dump! Anybody here know what the process is? Do they just turn on a tap and it sprays all over the sea, or do they actually burn it off?
Large, wide-body aircraft like the 747 have special equipment installed to dump fuel in emergencies, by spraying it out of nozzles attached to the wings. If they didn't, then a fully loaded aircraft would have to fly for many hours to burn enough fuel to get down to a safe landing weight.
On the other hand, narrow-body aircraft (e.g. 737 and A320 series) usually don't have such equipment and really do have to circle for hours burning it in these situations.