Originally Posted by
FlyXLsa
Why did this British Airways 777 divert to Baku when they were actually closer to Tehran?
"A British Airways Boeing 777-200, registration G-VIIA performing flight BA-199 (dep Jul 11th) from London Heathrow (UK) to Mumbai (India) with 197 passengers and 17 crew, was enroute at FL370 about 170nm south of Baku (Azerbaijan) in Iranian air space when the crew decided to divert to Baku after needing to shut the left hand engine (GE90) down. The aircraft landed safely on Baku's runway 16 about 70 minutes later."
Incident: British Airways B772 near Baku on Jul 12th 2018, engine shut down in flight
Nearest Airport - Nearest airport in point of time. Two airports of
different distances may be considered equal airports if a normal descent
requires the same amount of time to arrive at either airport. If persistent
smoke, fire or other potentially catastrophic situation is encountered, an
emergency descent may be appropriate, in which case the closer airport
may be the better choice.
Have you ever looked at the terrain in that part of the world?