Hello. Obviously it is not a common occurrence, but aircraft will sometimes have to dump fuel. I was just wondering what the ecological impact of fuel dumps are. I know that you never dump fuel over land, but is there anything that they do so that the fuel that gets dumped wont have as much of an impact on the ecosystem? Is there anything that prevents it from killing off animals and/or slowly washing up onto the shores of beaches?
It is not great for anyone to dump fuel. It’s done only when deemed strictly necessary. There have been controversies in the past, like when fuel was dumped over a highly populated part of Los Angeles, which injured scores of people.
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I thought it dissolved in the air 😶.
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It’s not great. Most aircraft choose to dump fuel in an are that is not as populated such as the middle of nowhere or over the water. There is also a minimum height. But the ecological impact from a fuel fire on aircraft crash are even worse.
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you can find lots of information online but unless it’s an extremely time sensitive emergency, planes will dump fuel in designated zones of airspace. At higher altitudes, any dumped fuel dissipates into the atmosphere long before falling to earth.
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