unlike gasoline, jet fuel isn t highly flammable. but as this faa test shows, when it s heated, the vapors that are produced can be explosive. as twa flight 800 prepares to take off from new york s jfk airport, the center wing fuel tank, about the size of a two-car garage, is nearly empty. all that was in that fuel tank was basically just residual fuel, just a small amount of fuel sloshing around the bottom of the tank. given the short duration of this particular flight, the operators don t usually use or put fuel into the center fuel tank because they don t need it. the wings hold a sufficient amount of fuel. you can save some money and get better performance by leaving the fuel out of it. with passengers waiting on board flight 800, a delay with baggage is keeping the plane at the gate. it was a hot day in new york, and they ve had the air conditioning packs running to keep the aircraft cool. the air conditioning packs are mounted in close proximity to the center fuel tan
with passengers waiting on board flight 800, a delay with baggage is keeping the plane at the gate. it was a hot day in new york, and they ve had the air conditioning packs running to keep the aircraft cool. the air conditioning packs are mounted in close proximity to the center fuel tank. as the ac packs work to keep the airplane cool, they re actually generating heat underneath the center wing fuel tank. so the fuel tank was actually getting very warm. so when the airplane takes off, you have this warm fuel vapor. if there was a full load of fuel in that tank, it could absorb that heat with no problem. it was generally believed that fuel tank were not really flammable. they couldn t really even be ignited because the temperature wasn t great enough. and so we took a 747 tested them in very similar conditions, and we were all surprised how hot it got and also it didn t