Sprung a Leak

If you're look out the window of the airplane your on and you see this, have the flight attendant contact the pilot immediately. That's what a U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant did and in doing so he may have saved the flight and its 300 passengers from tragedy.

Or did he?

From Wired...

Staff Sgt. Bartek Bachleda knew something was amiss almost immediately after the jetliner left Chicago. He’d looked out the window and saw what he thought was a fuel leak. He’d know, because he’s a boom operator with the 909th Air Refueling Station based at Kadena Air Base in Japan.

He alerted the flight attendant, who appeared unconcerned. “Ma’am, it’s an emergency,” he told her after identifying himself, according to the U.S. Air Force. “You need to inform the captain before we go oceanic.”

Upon landing, the captain told Bachleda the plane wouldn’t have made it to Japan.

After reading this story a couple times it struck me that few things just didn't add up. First, there must be a fuel gauge and warning indicators in the cockpit so the plane wouldn't simply have run out of fuel without the pilot knowing it was getting low (the Air Force article even states that the pilots already knew they were losing fuel but couldn't figure out why). Also, I've flown the Chicago-Tokyo route many times and the flight path takes you up and over western Canada, then skirts the southern edge of Alaska until it goes "oceanic" more than half-way through the flight (see below).

With a 6,000 lb per hour fuel leak of course the plane wouldn't have made it to Japan but I'm guessing that there are many emergency landing spots along the route in Canada, Alaska, or even eastern Siberia where the plane could have been landed safely.

The passenger alerting the pilot was a good step but it seems like the article from the Air Force was a bit sensationlist which is why it's good practice to question what you read and the motivations of the writer.