Originally Posted by
gijoe411
Was flying out of CLT today and heard Eagle flight 207 (?) talking to departure and declaring an emergency. They said "fuel leaking out of the right wing". The crew sounded very composed. Just wondering how everything turned out and how something like that could happen, and how did they notice.
If it was an Eagle ERJ and it was loaded down with fuel, it was probably a non-event. Probably got over-fueled, it expanded, and it came outta the right wing down by the aileron (there's a fuel vent there on the underside of the wing). It's not the norm, but it does happen. The one time I saw it, we called MX and after about 5 minutes it stopped once the right tank was about 200 lbs lighter. Made sure the plane was good with MX, ran the numbers with dispatch to make sure our remaining fuel was adequate (it was) and went on our way without further incident.
We were alerted by tower telling us we had "a pretty good contrail coming off the right wing". It sounds like a bigger deal than it really is.