[mannykannot]

Thank you for bringing your expertise here. I was wondering if you could give some insight on something that occurred to me while reading this: at first sight, transferring fuel to the leaking tanks might seem to be a substitute for the failure of the fuel jettison system, while also doing something about the increasing lateral imbalance.

[stevepeg]

That’s good lateral thinking :)

Given that the aircraft can be landed over max landing weight (needs a maintenance inspection) and is still controllable with total imbalance I’d say that balancing just wasn’t as pressing of a concern.

Also, with that much damage you never really know where else it could be leaking. Leaking fuel into critical spaces of the aircraft could be bad so turning on the fuel crossfeed might add extra issues.