Airplanes have a safe landing weight, the same way they have a safe takeoff weight. Landing above this weight may result in structural damage when landing, which would put everyone on the plane in danger.
Here is a good article about it: https://www.popsci.com/story/technology/airplane-fuel-dumping-landing-weight/
Edit: found the Wikipedia page for fuel dumping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_dumping
That makes sense. I’d prefer they just damage the plane rather than pollute the ocean so much. But obviously if it puts passengers at risk they won’t do that
This was a cargo plane, so I wonder if the plane’s service life was worth more than the damage to the environment. Assuming the heavy landing would’ve been safe enough still for the pilots and horse. Not my field of expertise by far.
Not so fun fact, 15k tonnes of crude oil were dumped into the oceans in 2022. Which could have been processed to 1k tonnes of jet fuel in another life, if I did the math correctly.
Considering environmental damages may top 4 quadrillion by the end of the century, it’s hard to argue for the plane
