Airman spots aircraft fuel leak at 35,000 feet

[tsr2]

Looks like this flight was really lucky.... though it seems the cockpit crew where aware that something was astray and wouldn't have gone oceanic. Looks like the cabin crew could do with some training.

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123149266

[no4mkit]

Well they couldn't have had a better trained man to spot it!

[ZS-VAN]

What a save! That would have been a nasty incident. Cabin crew... :unsure:

[Masterbomber]

How often does this happen?

I recall my Dad marvelling that when waiting to take off from Dubai in a BA VC10 in the late 70s, fuel (or some liqiud) was pouring out of the wings prior to and after take off. And when I was in the Solomon Islands in the 90s I made an hour and a half flight in an Islander, cursing all the way that I couldn't get any decent photos as the lagoons below were permanently obscured by a cloud of fuel vapour pouring from the left wing. I assumed this was normal, and that Islanders were designed like SR71 Blackbirds to leach fuel from their tanks, presumably to relieve the build up of excess fuel vapour pressure in their tanks in hot climates. However, a couple of days later when I ran into a helicopter pilot at my hotel and explained this over a few beers, he replied "....er, no they're not..." and the penny dropped...