Environmental Justice in Los Angeles

As is customary with commercial planes making emergency landings, on January 14, a Delta 777 dumped jet fuel to reduce its weight before returning to Los Angeles International Airport. Delta Flight 89 was bound for Shanghai when its pilot turned the plane around on account of engine troubles. The plane flew in a loop back to LAX, passing over the Pacific, Brentwood, Glendale, and Central LA before dumping fuel over Bell Gardens and Lynwood just before landing at the airport. The fuel dump, though procedural, raised questions about the necessity of releasing at this point in the flight path, a decision that irritated the skin and breathing of many residents below, including a group of elementary school students outside for recess. Upon reporting engine troubles to flight control at LAX, the Delta pilot responded negative when asked if the plane would need to dump jet fuel to arrive at a safe landing weight and doubled down when dispatch asked to confirm. The Federal Aviation Administration clarified that planes are supposed to release fuel over “designated unpopulated areas, typically at higher altitudes so the fuel atomizes and disperses before it reaches the ground.” Considering this, it seems the plane would have had many optimal opportunities to dump (over the ocean, or by the coast) before reaching the end of its flight path when altitude was lowest. The agency said it was investigating Tuesday's events.

Perhaps this is an editorialized account of what happened. Perhaps the pilot believed the flight would make a safe landing at LAX without reducing its weight. Perhaps it didn't matter that Lynwood is a primarily Hispanic neighborhood. Perhaps I'm being unfair. Maybe the elementary school teachers suing Delta are too.

This year, I am in City of Angels, a class dedicated to studying Los Angeles. As we transition from the first semester to the second and thus from the history of LA to its science, I look forward to learning about and encouraging environmental justice in my communities, however broad. It seems no coincidence that it was not Brentwood or Glendale that felt a fuel shower, but this is also not a surprise. Misconduct by a Delta pilot, an emergency fuel dump over elementary schools, planes at exceptionally low altitude, none of these things are a coincidence for Lynwood or its neighboring communities. The working class and racial/ethnic minority groups have historically been confined to (environmentally) undesirable areas. Airports, factories, rail roads, and oil rigs have all sprouted up in the backyards of People of Color and the poor who inherit pollution as industry grows. These backyards are thus deemed the perfect place to spray noxious jet fuel. Or maybe switch that order? Even the vast Pacific is spared over these schoolyards.

But then again, I know nothing about aviation, and I know full well that this is all dramatized. Take it as you will.