DL 89 Fuel Dump onto School LAX to PVG
 

Hope all involved are fine.
A fuel dump is not Niagara Falls as some media make it out to be. This one was probably flying just a little too low for full vaporization.
https://www.foxla.com/news/multiple-...ound-in-cudahy

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL89. Plane was over land just about the entire flight.

Happens on the same day of "blowout" earnings.

Bad week for things like this and Delta. First the runway incursion at JFK now the fuel dump.

Yeah it must have been flying low for it to reach the ground.

Dumping over water was out of the question?

Yeah, they supposed to dumps the fuel in the ocean, not at the school grounds. The kids could be very sick.

The answer is yes. They supposed to dumping the fuel in the ocean, not at the grounds.

It's California. Dumping over water causes pollution, doncha know?

Dump it over land and it burns up in the next wildfire. Less long term environmental damage.

I guess the emergency wasn't too bad or they would have landed heavy.

I would assume they still did. The flight path shows no holds of any kind and just a relatively simple circle back to land. Must have been a pretty serious situation indicated for these kinds of measures to be taken I would think.

They probably could have landed heavy but had the time to dump, and if they had to do a single-engine go-around, they'd have a lot better climb performance without all that extra fuel.

The "aluminum-foil" cap wearers will say that this is proof of "Chem-Trails"

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publ...section_4.html
Specifies 2,000 feet minimum between aircraft dumping fuel and another aircraft below midair.

With respect to ground, distance is greater for complete vaporization.
CAA (UK) states 4,000 feet above ground in summer and 7,000 feet in winter. https://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33...il%202015).pdf (see page 305 of pdf)

This must have been a pretty extraordinary emergency

Would such low altitude dump risk a spectacular fireball given some source of ignition on the ground?

Smokey the bear probably does not approve dousing folks having a smoke with aviation fuel...

I was wondering the same. What if someone was smoking?

They'd still be smoking, just in a different form. ;)

Lead story on both the CBS and NBC evening national news.