If there was an emergency, they would have landed right away, and not wasted time dumping fuel. The fuel dumping is to get the plane below the max landing weight, so to eliminate the risk of damage to aircraft on landing, and to avoid costly and time consuming inspections that an overweight landing would require.

What happened to UA897?

Quote of the month...
 

Still on the floor laughing.

Since no aircraft is ever running 100% as it was designed, you must hate flying.

You know what I meant. :rolleyes:

Well, that's true to an extent, but I think it's fair to say that there are different levels of emergencies. For instance, if there's an engine fire but it's been extinguished they would probably dump the fuel to get below MLW. On the other hand, if there are serious concerns about whether the aircraft can make it that long (for instance, the engine fire cannot be extinguished) then you can be they'll put the bird on the ground post haste.

Of course, there's that old pilot adage of any landing you can walk away from is a good one, but any landing where you can use the airplane again is a great one!

Maybe I have been flying too much or too long but I have been on aircraft where fuel had to be dumped on two different occasions. The first was on a DC10 nearly 18 years ago. We departed from Boston and had a catestropic failure in the tail engine. THere was a very loud noise and channel 9 was instantly unavailable. I was traveling in first with my three year old and a six month old on my lap. The plane was somewhat unstable and all I could think about was the Soux City disaster. After ~30 minutes the pilot finally came on the intercomm to interupt what have been a very long period of silence. He told us about the catastrophic failure of the turbine but they NOW had the aircraft under control and would need to dump fuel before returning to Logan. The first 30 minutes of the event seemed to drag on forever. The last 20 minutes passed quickly because I was busy explaining to my three year old that we were not going to land in the water. What I had not thought about was the fleet of fire engines with flashing lights that greeted our touchdown. When we finally came to a stop, there was a round of applause and the pilot came on the intercomm to explain that before taxing to the gate, it would be necessary for the ground crew to remove some of the trailing gear! They had to tow us back to the terminal. The ground staff did an excellent job of taking care of passengers who decided to not continue their journey on a later flight.

The other event also occured while travelng with my two kids but it was several years later. We departed ORD on our way toe MSY in a 727. About 20 minutes into the flight the pilot announced that we needed to return to ORD because there was a fuel leak. Before landing we had to dump some additional fuel but it wasn't particularly concerning until we taxied to a holding box. We were surrounded by emergency equipment but they would not let us proceed to the gate or disembark from the aircraft. That is when things became interesting. There were passengers who became very upset because they imagined that the plane was close to exploding. I think the ground crew was doing everything possible to minimize that possibility. Eventually we were towed to the gate but there were some rather agitated people on board.

While not a fuel dump, I was in a real inflight emergency. I was on a US flight ATL-PIT in the winter time and there was a bad snowstorm backing up arrivals. We entered into a long holding pattern and a passenger went into the bathroom for a smoke (must not have been aware of the smoke detectors). Anyway, they disposed of their cigarette in the trash can and set the bathroom on fire. The FAs initially tried to put it out but then realized it wasn't in the cards on the small fire extinguisher. So they shut the door and we landed mighty quick. Down the slides and into a snow bank. Fire was put out and we got our luggage delivered a couple days later.

So, what was I doing? I was sitting near the back looking behind me wondering if the fire was going to eat through the wall. I was also wondering what kind of idiot decides to throw a cigarette into the trash on an airplane. No, I did not review the emergency card... if you're not near an exit, your job is to leave your junk on the plane and go to the nearest unobstructed exit and take a jump. Pretty simple.

What would I do?
 

Drink;)

i agree with mahasamatman.

Though, I suspect, many of the silent FlyerTalk readers wonder "what compensation" they are entitled to. You know, because "their inconvenience" is all that matters. Also, I bet they also want to make sure they get the full miles for the original trip and get the additional miles for the rest of the to the final destination. And finally, how they can blame this dumping of fuel directly correlates to the lack of service and/or knowledge at the ICC.

Riiiight, they had Channel 9 nearly eighteen-years ago?

May not have been on Ch 9, specifically...however, when I flew to CA for one of my 29 Stumps ATs (IAD-ORD-ONT & back the same way), I remember listening to Flight Crew/ATC on the audio system installed at the time, that was in 1993 (14 yrs ago).

"From the Cockpit" has been around as long as I can remember flying United as a kid, which was at least 18 years ago. I can't remember if it was channel 9, but I feel like it was. It used to be the captain's choice between "From the Cockpit" and the pop music channel, which made it annoying for either me or my younger sister, but not both. :)

(Of course, I could be wrong.)

Yes they had channel 9 more than 18 years ago and most people knew how to spell in those days (just kidding). Something else that used to happen 20 years ago is if you added you mileage plus to award trips they would credit the mileage to your account. It was a great deal when flying from the east coast to HNL.