I have just seen that a BA flight from London to Miami took a 2 hour detour to use up fuel before heading to its destination. It is not the first time I have heard of this.
Why do planes need to use up/dump the fuel before landing? Surely it’s better to be safe and have more than enough fuel for the entire journey therefore not use up a full tank just before landing?
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When a plane lands, it bumps into the ground on its undercarriage quite heavily, and then has to be brought to a stop by the brakes (and reverse thrust) in the length of runway available. Each of these can only deal with an aircraft up to a certain weight. If the aircraft is heavier than that, it can not land safely.
When a plane takes off, its engines have to accelerate it down the runway up to a speed where the wings generate enough lift for it to become airborne, within the length of runway available. There is a maximum weight that a plane can take off with.
Maximum takeoff weight is generally larger than maximum landing weight. For a long distance flight, the fuel needed for the flight will be a lot, so generally the plane will be loaded with the fuel it needs for the flight, the passengers it needs, and any leftover allowance on takeoff weight will be filled with airfreight. For a long flight, it will be below the maximum for landing once it has used up its fuel.
If a plane that had planned for a long flight gets into trouble and needs to land somewhere soon after takeoff, if it hasn’t used up enough fuel, it may be above its maximum safe landing weight. If the problem isn’t super urgent, then just flying around for a bit to burn off fuel until the maximum safe landing weight is reached can be a sensible strategy.
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