Not just a ton, and I'm only chiming in here because the numbers are staggering. In the case of e.g. a 747 it's something like 190 tons. 63,000 some odd gallons of fuel.

The fuel is also flammable, and the engines work by at the end of the day being on fire in a controlled manner. Having the fuel and engines hit the ground elsewhere from the occupants sounds like a good plan to me if you can manage a way to do it somehow.

But like half of airline fires have been caused by things in the cargo hold.

The cargo hold is typically under the passenger compartment.

So in reality, there’s a 50ish percent chance that the pilots are just saving their own life.