SEA fuel line leak-Update

"No truth to the rumor you can bring a 5 gallon can of Jet-A through security at SEA"

Oh gosh, that's funny! IF you bring your own jerry can will it count as your personal item or will it count as medically necessary?

Pam, it's a liquid. You'll need to put it in a quart size bag.

I hope it’s fixed before all of the Thanksgiving travelers!

I will be flying through SeaTac the week after Thanksgiving. My flights have a good buffer time, so I’ll hope for the best.

I hope it’s fixed before all of the Thanksgiving travelers!

The news tonight is that 200 ft of pipeline has been uncovered in the search of where the leak is. That it was leaking was discovered almost 2 weeks ago.

Still waiting for the 'aha, here it is' moment and then they have to determine the repair needed and do it. Having it all done for Thanksgiving travel seems unlikely.

Maybe by Christmas.

If this goes on a while longer, it's going to start causing significant disruptions - with little fuel coming, the planes will not go far. They can (and already are) doing some minor things to mitigate the problem (asking airlines to fly in with as much fuel as possible on board, bringing in some fuel by truck), but those measures will only go so far since each have major limitations. The demand is far outstripping the mitigations.

Regional/national flights can add refueling stops elsewhere, and that'll make a real difference for those (it'll also start disrupting schedules). But adding refueling stops elsewhere is sometimes just not an option (eg for longhaul international flights across the Pacific or to Europe over the pole).

Challenging times ahead.

let's see - a pipe that was full of jet fuel, now full of vapours, a hole that requires welding.... hmmmm .... what could possibly go wrong??

Fuel is flowing again - it's a Thanksgiving Miracle!

Turns out the "pipeline" is actually two pipelines, a large one and a small one. The leak seems to be in the large one. That pipeline is still shut down, and they're working on a repair plan. Meanwhile, the Seattle Times is reporting that they have restarted flow in the smaller of the two pipelines. Evidently, that'll be enough to keep the planes moving through SeaTac (and every other airport in the state), as well as sending necessary fuel to Oregon, too.

(I digress, but: evidently a single point of failure which apparently can cripple transportation across two states. Hmmmm. Might be something to address there...)

Story here: Seattle Times - Fuel flowing after Olympic Pipeline leak disrupted Sea-Tac flights