Clean-Air Pilot

Soon after a jetliner takes off, the pilot jettisons about three gallons of kerosene. This is excess fuel left in "holding tanks" from the engines' last run. Airline officials insist that the kerosene vaporizes in the atmosphere and does not return to earth. But Eastern Airlines Captain William L. Guthrie, 58, disagrees--and has lost his job as a result.

A $37,000-a-year pilot with 30 years of flying experience, Guthrie says that the dumped fuel either falls on the runway, where it can become a "greasy and slippery" hazard for other aircraft, or else it contributes to airport smog that is "often so thick you can't see the earth horizon." One of Guthrie's friends crashed in such murk in 1962.

In a solo crusade for a cleaner blue yonder, Guthrie routinely ordered mechanics to drain his holding tanks by hand before takeoffs. He says the process should take from three to five minutes. But Eastern told the mechanics not to obey him--"Each of our 3,700 pilots cannot make his own rules," said a company official--and flights were delayed by as much as 98 minutes until the captain got his way. The conflict of wills was resolved two weeks ago when the airline fired the veteran pilot.

Last week Guthrie's 3,700 fellow Eastern pilots intimated that they, too, will drain holding tanks on the ground unless Guthrie gets his wings back. Meanwhile, Eastern announced that it had asked manufacturers to try to design a quieter, almost pollution-free engine in which excess fuel would seep back into the regular fuel tanks.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.