fuel tank
it would have hit the fuel tank....

Aaaaand... nothing would have happened. Strange but true: drop a lit match into a bucket of jet fuel and the match goes out. Bit like diesel. It's got to get about something like 200 degrees before it "auto ignites".

Note: Don't try this down your local grassy airfield. Small planes use something a bit more akin to petrol.
(FlyingGiraffe I thought Deep Throat was a movie about a giraffe, Wed 25 Aug 2010, 16:13, 4 replies)

Ah yes, AVTUR and AVGAS
I had to put out an AVTUR fire on my fire training. AVGAS is terrifying stuff.
( M3rx likes the Asian ladies, Wed 25 Aug 2010, 16:53, closed)

Avgas
A mate of mine used to run his Bultaca 350 on half avgas, half petrol.

Fucking thing would pull away from ZX10s.
(dchurch bah, Wed 25 Aug 2010, 20:11, closed)

I found a cigarette in petrol is similar.
I'm never convinced when a film character drops a cigarette at the end of a trail of petrol and it starts to burn. I've seen cigarettes put out by dropping them into petrol and sometimes found that a small petrol spill wouldn't even light when a match was dropped into it.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Wed 25 Aug 2010, 17:45, closed)

Pah! Trust someone who knows what their talking about to ruin a good story! :-)
It was still a bit scary though...
(FiatPanda, Wed 25 Aug 2010, 22:51, closed)

I read something like that in the Darwin Awards book,
Some guy was trying to prove to his friend that you can't light diesel with a match. They were working at a train yard, so this guy lights a flare from the cab and throws it on some splilt diesel, and of course, it ignited and gutted a train. Turns out flares burn much hotter than matches
( Major Turd for tonight only, Thu 26 Aug 2010, 1:36, closed)

No one died actually

( Major Turd for tonight only, Thu 26 Aug 2010, 1:37, closed)