[Hodar]

So, under circumstances where people's lives are very much at stake, I couldn't fathom why where the dumping of fuel can make the difference between life and death for countless of passengers, the hydraulics having failed, why is the Airbus A320 forced to fly hours on end to burn as much fuel as possible instead of being able to dump fuel to land as quickly safely as possible?

In short, "The aircraft's rated "Take-Off" weight is far greater than the "Landing Weight"." It would not be a good thing to have the Landing Gear collapse if the aircraft landed with full fuel tanks. This is why most jets have fuel pumps to dump excess fuel into the atmosphere.

The Landing Gear have to deal with a tremendous amount of force - they are not designed to take the weight of the aircraft at landing with full fuel tanks. However, they are well within design parameters for taxi and take-off with full tanks.

[ltc8k6]

“Landing overweight and fuel jettisoning are both considered safe procedures: There are no accidents on record attributed to either cause. In the preamble to Amendment 25-18 to FAR Part 25, relative to fuel jettison, the FAA stated, “There has been no adverse service experience with airplanes certificated under Part 25 involved in overweight landings.” Furthermore, service experience indicates that damage due to overweight landing is extremely rare.”

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_3_07/article_03_2.html