Marshall Brain's Blog

I guess that this happens quite often when planes have to make emergency landings. I am thinking that with enough altitude and speed the fuel probably vaporizes and doesn't come crashing to the ground in bucket-fulls.
 

I was returning from the CeBIT expo in Germany several years ago and our 747 blew an engine on takeoff. It was pretty scary, but there was no fire and the aircraft was stable in flight. As soon as the flight crew determined the problem, they were ordered to spend the next two hours flying a very wide pattern over the black forest while dumping fuel. The idea being that if you are high enough, the fuel is distributed over a wide enough area to be nothing more and a slight increase in smog.