Transubstantiation

[kickaha]

The Air France crash is, no matter how you look at it, tragic and sad. Reading the reports of the debris being found, however, it struck me...

Why is it always oil cans?!? It seems like every time I hear about a flight going down over water, and rescuers going out looking for wreckage, they find: orange life vests, floating fuel, and oil cans. The first two make sense, but WHY OIL CANS?!? What *possible* reason can an airliner have for carrying oil cans, mid-flight, in such a way that they're likely to be torn off and scattered? What the hell, does the copilot get tasked with topping off Engine #3 midflight because it looks a bit low? God knows they're screwed if the Check Engine light comes on, but really now...

I mean, is this like the Universal Rule of Vomiting, that no matter what you eat, it comes up as carrots? Are these oil cans some mystical trade to the netherworld, where we send them luggage, and they send back empty oil cans? WTF?


Oil cans? *REALLY*?

Comments

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Oil cans float. If there *are* oil cans aboard and the plane breaks up over (or under) the water, oil cans are among the few things that won't end up at the bottom.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

The physics of floating I understand. Why are there oil cans on the plane in the first place? Why does it seem that oil cans are on most flights, if the debris reports are to be believed?

I'm still rooting for the underworld craigslist swap theory.

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

It seems reasonable to carry a certain amount of maintenance parts and materials with a plane; smaller planes might frequently land at airports without full maintenance facilities, and FAA rules (as with any huge government organization) are applied across broad categories, rather than tailored to individual requirements.

So, yeah, I can see how the fact that a Ford Tri-Motor needs to carry the output of a third-world refinery because its engines leak oil like a '68 Beetle would translate to there being some oil cans on a transatlantic A330.

[night-monkey.livejournal.com]

what george said. oil floats.

[kaneda-khan.livejournal.com]

Airlines have been hedging oil prices changes using futures contracts. Obviously they're covering shorts and wisely chose a just-in-time inventory system that could deliver the oil anywhere within hours.