Passenger plane has to dump fuel during take-off from German airport

This Boeing 737 wound up dumping some of its fuel during takeoff from Düsseldorf airport earlier this week (March 15).

Footage of the takeoff shows how an emergency fuel vent was releasing fuel from the left wingtip after lifting off the ground. This was not strictly an emergency but a necessary failsafe when a plane's is over-fuelled.

The filmer commented on the sight: "Every airplane has fuel overflow vents but I have only filmed three planes losing fuel through the overflow vents within the past 15 years. It's kinda rare to see this happen.

"These vents are quite important to make sure the pressure inside the fuel tanks doesn't get too high. Especially when the wings bend during takeoff it might happen that the fuel doesn't have enough space anymore inside the wings."