AA 737 Preparing for Emergency Landing at LAX

[NJT916]

Just to split hairs, that's Catalina Island.
The Channel Islands are off the coast of Ventura, a little bit north of LA.

What, did you go to flight school near there or something?

 

[JA Yawd Bwoy]

I could be wrong but I don't think they can dump fuel on a 737. I think they just have to fly around till they burn it off.

That's right. All they could do is fly around and burn off enough fuel to reach the maximum landing weight, or close to it without exceeding it.

Same thing with Jetblue Flight 292... Could not dump, so they circled for about 3 hours, all with the passengers of the exact flight watching!:crazy:

 

[Wild_Weasel]

well, just to be totally machiavellian: the "footprint" of environmental damage from a crash is far lower than that produced by spreading jet fuel over many square miles....
(ducks to avoid being hit by inevitable flaming responses)

In all seriousness, for the sake of argument, if the fuel needs to be dumped, why not dump over the ocean instead of an island?

The "Channel Islands" just refers to an area of OCEAN dotted with islands of the coast of Southern CA.

Also, jet fuel tends to dissipate when dumped from altitude and breaks up before it hits the ground. So its environmental impact will be small regardless of where it's dumped.