Here's one thing that can happen when you run out of fuel in an
airliner, Air Transat Flight 236. Look at some pics on the internet,
they melted the rims off of the plane trying to stop it after crossing
the fence at 200 knots in their GLIDER!.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...%3Den%26sa%3DN
You think maybe the AA pilots had this on their mind when turning down
Addison and askng for a long wide runway that they were intimately
familiar with?
One of the scariest emergency calls I ever heard was an AA Airbus out
of New York, they declared an emergency after takeoff and asked for a
return to JFK. When the controllers asked them for their fuel state
and souls on board, they responded with the number of people and said
"we're not sure how much fuel we have remaining". Later they estimated
they had maybe 15-20 minutes at the rate that it was leaving the
airplane. They made it to JFK. We are talking 10,000 gallons plus that
disappeared. How would you like to make that radio transmission?

Pull up the airport diagram for DFW. http://204.108.4.16/d-tpp/0702/06039AD.PDF
There are a 7 runways there to land on, esp if you hold some
departures for a few minutes on the inboards (17R or 18L). Taxiway L
was even a runway at one point in the early days. I personally
wouldn't mind holding my takeoff for someone who was coming in with a
fuel emergency. Now anyone who has to go around has probably just
become minimum fuel themselves, so spinning them is not the best
option, now you have a daisy chain of low fuel birds. The controllers
I know are hard workers and do a job I would not (probably could not )
do. My gut feeling here is an important communications lesson was
learned here, with a happy ending. Maybe the phone call could have
gone "AA 489 has declared a fuel emergency, they will be landing 17C
(or17R).", not they "are requesting..." Easier to beg forgiveness than
request permission.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236