DidItMyWay
All this was obviously poorly handled
It sounds to me as though they did an excellent job, and got the passenger to their desired destination. As NOD says, this sounds like an engine surge. The SOP on four engined aircraft is to continue unless it is unsafe to do so. The crew would have carried out extensive procedures to check the other engines and would have taken great care to calculate the fuel required, probably using an 'en-route alternate' such as Nice.
The EAAC crews are very experienced, being mainly ex BA, Virgin and Cathay, and they would have known that the tapes would be pulled and the CAA would check the paperwork. I think that it is a little unfair to say that this was poorly handled without knowing all of the facts.
Airclues