B747-400
Flight Attendant Current
Time Pressure; Situational Awareness; Communication Breakdown; Confusion
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Maintenance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Took Evasive Action; General Maintenance Action; General Flight Cancelled / Delayed
Procedure; Aircraft; Company Policy
While we readied the cabin and [were] about to push back from jet bridge customers seating near the left wing reported that the fuel tank on the left wing was leaking again. Flight Attendant informed cockpit and Purser about the situation. The time was about noon. The fuel leak situation from the left wing looked like running water and seemed [as though] Local Maintenance didn't fix the airplane from the earlier day. Pilots made [an] announcement and tried to contact Airport Operation to see what we could do. We were waiting for about a half hour and finally a fire truck came; but seemed that they were not worried about the fuel leaking from our airplane. The purpose that they come over there seemed like [to] standby the airplane. We still couldn't stop the fuel flowing. Flight Attendant stayed by the jumpseat. The passengers in the Economy [Class] were very worried and upset [that] the airplane could [catch] on fire because outside temperature is about 97 F and so much fuel kept flowing out. And it looked worse than the [first] day. Another half hour passed by; we called the cockpit about some passengers [who] wanted to walk away [from] the airplane for the safety concern and the cockpit was trying to reach the airport operation and see if they couldn't send a CSR to take passengers. For another half hour time cockpit made PA to everybody and told passengers that we are still waiting for Custom's approval to allow passenger to go to terminal. And we still [had] not heard from CSR. Passengers in Economy Class were all getting upset about why we were keeping them in this dangerous situation and doing nothing as the time went by. We knew this was not right. Why car lock the jet bridge door and [why] can we only call them from the cockpit and [why] they didn't communicate with us for most of the time. Another half hour time [passed before] finally one female [CSR] came to the plane. About 20+ passenger were congregating on door 2L and tried to get out [of] the plane. The CSR told Flight Attendant that we still need to wait for Custom to allow us to go [to the] terminal. We asked her to send a Supervisor and more CSRs to help the situation; but she didn't respond and the jet bridge door was also locked. Purser had flight attendants arm the door because we knew if we had an emergency that we could only use [the] slide to deplane the passengers since the jet bridge was still locked. Quite a lot of fuel was now flowing under the airplane. Since cockpit had made numerous calls [to] Airport Operations and we [had to] just wait and wait again. Two hours [later] the CSR came back again; we had passengers who didn't want to stay [they wanted] to walk away [from the plane and fuel spill]. Most of passenger didn't want to stay on the plane and the Captain decided to let all the passengers off the plane. I was thinking if this had happened at a U.S. airport would we handle this situation different? What kind of safety standard are we presenting on this matter? The communication between CSR and cabin crew was poor and us saying nothing was what made people mad. After passengers deplaned the crew was told to remain on the plane. Which also confused me; if I am a passenger I would definitely like to leave this airplane ASAP? After one more hour wait we left the airplane and [went to the] hotel for layover.
A B747-400 was venting fuel from the left wing as the aircraft prepared to push back causing near panic; but two hours passed before Customer Service removed the passengers and canceled the flight.