Emirates flight dumping fuel

 

Flying to from London to Dubai on Saturday morning was another interesting flight. I make this flight a lot at the moment and the last 3 flights have been interesting to say the least.

One flight was delayed by 5 hours which was a pain but not too bad. Flying from Dubai to London 3 weeks ago, we were about to take off when we had to go back to the gate to off load a passenger who was unwell, again, a short delay but glad the passenger was off loaded so they could get the medical help.

On saturday of this week, we were 15 minutes into the flight from Heathrow to Dubai when there was an announcement. “Are there any medically trained Doctors or Paramedics on board please, if so please make yourself known to the cabin crew.”  Already I knew that this wasn’t going to be good for everyone.

Eventually it transpired that we had to get this passenger on the ground and quickly. He needed medical attention and he needed it fast. (He was having chest pains and sat a few rows in front of me).

The Captain had to make the decision to divert the flight to Frankfurt airport and get this person the help he needed. At this point we had to turn around and head back to Frankfurt which took 35 minutes and we also had to dump the fuel we had. (Landing with full fuel tanks is not recommended as the plane is just too heavy).  So we dumped the fuel (see picture) and then landed.

The man was taken off the plane and to hospital. We then found out that the plane had an issue with the right engine (great to find this out on the ground, NOT in the air 🙂 ) so we had a further delay of  50 minutes (over two hours in total) before taking off.

All the while the Cabin Crew and Captain kept us all up to date with what was happening and even ensured those who were connecting flights in Dubai were being taken care of as soon as we landed.

Just after we landed and as we were taxiing the Captain announced the passenger was doing well in hospital, which I am very pleased about. Sure we landed 4 hours later but the crew of that flight made the right decisions and then communicated it in the most effective ways.

Whilst it was a pain arriving late, I hope that if I was ever a person who needed medical help on a flight it would be handled in the same way

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