A320s and Fuel Dumping
 

The following story was copied from http://www.vosizneias.com/108292/201...nical-meltdown.

Is there any truth to the assertion (highlighted) in the penultimate paragraph, please?

Here's the report:

Las Vegas - A mechanical failure sent a JetBlue plane like this one careening wildly through the skies, sparking panic among the 155 people aboard the Las Vegas to New York flight, passengers told The Post yesterday.
“It was four hours of hell,” said Travis McGhie, who described how the plane kept lurching from side to side and going into steep turns when its hydraulic system failed Sunday.

“People were getting sick. Some people were throwing up. There were a lot of people getting nauseous,” said another passenger, Tom Mizer.
The crew did everything they could to prevent panic. One flight attendant walked down the aisle saying: “Look at me — I’m smiling. If I was scared, you would know it. If I’m not scared, you don’t need to be,” Mizer said.
One of the pilots declared an emergency and radioed Las Vegas controllers that they were dealing with “quite a few things, but the initial thing is . . . we’ve lost two hydraulic systems.”

The plane was loaded with five hours’ worth of fuel. Because the A320 is incapable of dumping excess fuel, the pilots circled the area south of the Vegas Strip until they’d burned enough to allow the crippled plane to land safely.

“People on board got a little freaked. People were upset. Nobody was crazy, but everyone was upset.

Yes, it is correct. Very few narrow-body airliners can dump fuel. I'm not aware of any since the B727 that had a fuel jettison feature. Even many wide-bodies don't have a jettison system. None of the B767-200s and only some of the B767-300s have it.

Correct; the A320 does not have fuel dump capability. Same for A318,319,321 and 330.

If the emergency is such that it is an emergency, why is it safe enough to circle around the Strip burning off fuel? It seems is safe enough to fly over a highly populated area, it is safe enough to meander in the general direction the pax want to go.

If it going to altitude that's dangerous?

It didn't: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/J...053Z/KLAS/KJFK

Yes, the A320 cannot dump fuel. I recall learing this during a different Jet Blue incident..the one in which the Jet Blue A320 left BUR enroute for JFK and twisted it's gear up. They had to circle the LA Basin for a couple of hours to lighten the load before trying to land.

There are many weights that an aircraft can land at and a different procedure for them.

Maximum Takeoff weight (MTOW) is usually a good bit more than Maximum Landing weight. Since there is no fuel dumping capability in most aircraft, the manufacturers have developped various procedures for dealing with this.

There are graphs that depict this and it shows weight against vertical speed. So depending in how hard they land, maybe they need an inspection, maybe they don't. A fully loaded A320 does not need to burn fuel to land at any weight below MTOW.

Given the hydraulic problem and how that ties into the Airbus systems like nose whell steering, my guess is that the decision to burn fuel was to keep from starting a massive blaze if they cracked up on landing or overrun as opposed to a weight issue.

It all depends on the nature of the emergency. If it's a fire in the cabin then the plane is going to get on the ground immediately, wherever it can, regardless of the landing weight.

Cactus 1549 couldn't have burned off fuel even if they'd wanted to.

On the other hand, if it's something like faulty landing gear then there's no harm in circling for a while burning off the fuel.

How can anybody take anything so badly written seriously?

The A330, by the way, can indeed dump fuel. It's "just" a question of checking that option when the aircraft is being ordered. Same for the 767 - you can have it if you pay for it.

A330-200 yes, A330-330 no. AFAIK

That depends on which model of B767. It's on some -300s but not on any of the -200s.

I was on a UA flight out of ORD that hit a flock of birds and lost an engine. UA-643 ORD-PDX Feb 2nd - http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/02/...r-bird-strike/ Talking to the captain afterwards, we returned to ORD overweight and on one engine and landed close to MTOW. No time or option to dump fuel, getting the plane back on the ground was priority #1. Plane was taken OOS not only for a new engine but for a thorough check.
Point is that even overweight A3xx can land just fine, well at least to the point that one can walk away and of course given enough runway.

- Tim

that is not necessarily a correct presumption.

I'm honestly surprised that recent modern aircraft don't have the ability to dump fuel. I shudder to think how much worse it would have been if UAL232 couldn't have dumped fuel before crashing here. That fireball will be forever burned into memory.

I was surprised to find that the main concern is not structural damage due to a heavy landing (although that's a factor), but the ability to arrest descent and climb out if a go-around is necessary. Typically the narrow bodies can do it within acceptable parameters, but many widebodies can't if fully loaded and thus require fuel dump systems.

I don't know all the facts for this particular case, but it does seem odd that they didn't land anyway if they were having control issues.