My guess is that when the prop left us, it kicked holes in the wing. Ruptured the tank.
8 seconds sound clip from the The High and the Mighty (1954) movie soundboard.
You can hear this line at 01:11:02 in the DVD version of the movie.
Quote context
[...]
- We'll only need about 1150 gallons, we've 1300 according to my graph.
- It's pinching things close...
- You can throw your graph away, because we haven't got 1300 gallons.
- The number one tank, it read 200 gallons when we lost our prop.
- My guess is that when the prop left us, it kicked holes in the wing. Ruptured the tank.
- I'll figure it up again, but the winds, the winds, maybe they'll change some.
- We're going into the drink. It's just a question of when and where.
- We've got plenty of time. Let's not rush off into the heat of the day about this.
[...]