Let's just imagine that there had been time to get the Swissair MD-11 to Halifax Airport, even though this was unlikely, based on what I read about the simulator tests, even if the crew had declared an emergency and quickly flown a vector straight to the nearest open runway. [Weren't the beancounters clever and wise to have mandated only two-pilot cockpits in complex widebody aircraft?]
If everyone had made it down evacuation chutes, then would the survivors and their family members prefer that the Swissair crew had delayed their approach in order to finish a long and intricate checklist?
Another hypothetical example: what if the Valuejet DC-9 had suffered a different sort of fire, which had stopped for a few minutes (at that time no cargo smoke detectors/extinguishers were installed), allowing the crew a short break to call Dispatch, but then the fire had re-ignited? If our planes have an engine or APU fire/bleed air leak, and the DC Transfer Bus fails, the fire signals simply go away.
Do many foreign airline Flight Operations and corporate cultures (in various nations) not allow a Captain to do whatever he/she feels necessary, in order to ensure safety of flight? Either the Captain has the authority, or does not-there is NO middle ground. Of course not every airport or runway is suitable, but I'm beginning to wonder if some airlines give Dispatch the ultimate authority, because of the Beancounters' often unreasonably invasive influences within most airlines....
