BoingBoing:

When a plane is in trouble, the pilots dump all its fuel before making an emergency landing. This is controversial; though fuel usually dissipates before reaching ground, it’s a dangerous pollutant all the same and sometimes it gets dumped close enough to humans that it puts them at risk.

This 1984 film, of a test of jet fuel formulated to resist igniting, shows why pilots dump it. NASA and the FAA loaded a retired training jet with test dummies, then remote-piloted it to a crash landing in the Mojave desert. It comes down rough but stays in one piece as it plows through earthworks and obstacles. If it were out of gas, chances of everyone surviving would be good. But with a full tank?

Spoiler: the fuel ignites.

I’d seen the end of this video many times but this is the first time I’ve read about the whys of it or seen what came before the fireball.