Saturday, Delta Flight 159, a Boeing 747-400, departed Detroit on it's way to South Korea, with 375 passengers on board. According to the Detroit Free Press, thirty minutes after takeoff, the pilots got a cockpit warning that warned about a POSSIBLE "open maintenance panel on the outside of the aircraft" (gas cap lid?), so they decided to cancel the flight and return to Detroit. Here's the problem: the max takeoff weight of a 747-400 is substantially higher than the max landing weight. What to do? Dump, by my calculations - (hello? 747 pilots?) about 30,00 gallons of fuel over Lake Michigan. (I'm thinking I might be a little high on that number, but I bet I'm in the ballpark) They had to do it to safely land the airplane - and at over $4 a gallon..ouch.

My guess is they were far enough up when they dumped the fuel (for an hour), that the wind carried it back over Michigan and most of it evaporated, so I bet none of it made it into the lake.

But your friends at the lake don't know that. (*wink* *wink)

BTW  - FLT 159 got back and landed in Detroit without incident. Don't know if their gas cap lid was really open or not.

 

Banana Don and Stephanie McCoy amuse and thrill you every weekday morning from 5:30 – 10AM on the radio at 100.7 WITL.

Noted zythologist and all-around fun guy Banana Don can be reached via email at don.jefferson@townsquaremedia.com and on Twitter at @WITLBananaDon and @WITLFM. Also, Facebook friend Banana Don and Stephanie at Facebook.com/BananaStephanie and Facebook.com/WITLFM.
Plus – check out the new WITL app. It’s much better than any other app – ever.

More From 100.7 WITL