Old Lurker : LF refers to a "mate" of his. I know Lf and his mate referred to as well. In that case, he did have a time limited discussion with both Flt Ops & Maintenance Control as he sped by. He also displayed much airmanship by reducing speed in order to talk to the guys before heading from VHF to HF territory. It was just of interest that a similar incident resulted in vilification rather than support. Oh to have been in United !
Hazy recall of the fab 767 but I seem to remember basic thinking ; "Low Fuel" in any tank required placing all pumps on & X-feed open. In tank to engine, fuel imbalance was another drill & a sometimes the result of the low fuel drill. There was an imbalance limitation too. Get down to that limit with Xfeed open suggested you were feeding the leak so the Xfeed was closed. You now had a possible leak, identified & out of balance & with refined drills after the Airbus (I think) incident suggesting the Xfeed should be closed. Sim Tripper-uppers loved that scenario ,
On thread though, the question asked was why did he divert. Obvious to the pros here. I concur. Excellent decision because he was faced with a worrying problem, over the ocean with time consuming drills & analasys which might have led to very low fuel and lovely Kef floating away at 8 miles a minute.
Landflap's "mate" had a lovely discussion with a top train driver comparing lifestyles,pay, opportunities etc . Traindriver reckoned we were not worth the money we got because we were not doing anything (mid Atlantic & when FD visits were permitted). "Mate" responded ; " Well, at the moment, we are five miles above the planet earth & we doing eight miles a minute........and........if anything goes wrong, WE can't stop."
Enviable support from the Crew's employer as well.