Washington state may fine airline for dumping fuel
Published 10:52 am Tuesday, May 5, 2009
SEATTLE — Washington state’s ecology department may fine Asiana Airlines over a plane that dumped fuel over Puget Sound before an emergency landing last week at Sea-Tac Airport.
Department spokesman Curt Hart said today that some of the dumped jet fuel reached the water.
Hart says the state action will depend on the investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board. He says the state does not want to discourage necessary emergency actions. Fuel usually evaporates in the air.
The Boeing 777 with 192 people on board landed safely. Sea-Tac spokeswoman Terri-Ann Betancourt says preliminary indications are that a compressor stall caused the engine problem.
