BA 744 Diversion to MAN
We were in California a couple of weeks ago when this item (it actually happened in February I believe) hit the news. It appears that the details were leaked to the press and it appeared that the FAA was forced to put out a statement, which was carried in most of the major newspapers and the TV news bulletins.
I seldom frequent Pprune, however the coverage in the US piqued my curiosity and the 'opinions' I have read have varied from the defensive to the aggressive to total ignorance (including sarcasm!!) as to the rational behind the safe, expeditious and commercial operation of heavy 4 engined aircraft and how the pilots in the 'hot seat' approach their profession. Dismissing the opinions of contributers because ' they aren't pilots smacks of high arrogance indeed, after all, these are the people that have kept food on my table for 35 years. Pacificum (enough!!)
The facts that I saw reported in the US are slightly different from the various 'opinions' that I have read posted by others in this thread however, being now retired, I have no verification one way or another as to the correct details of this particular incident, however I thought that I would offer my thought processes as to how I, as a Captain, would approach handling a similar situation - I would hope in a comparable way to my peers.
It was reported in the US that the engine in question suffered a compressor stall(s) shortly after take off but recovered only to bang away again on the noise abatement power reduction. The decision to shut it down therefore became a 'precautionary' and not an 'emergency' course of action.
Basically when I was a Captain on the 400 there were 3 possible courses of action
1. If an engine either failed on TO (fire/failure etc) or catastrophically during flight requiring an immediate full mergency shutdown the procedure was to call an emergency, carryout an emergency engine shutdown, dump fuel and land ASAP - end of story
2. If an engine exhibited worrying signs - loss of thrust, loss of oil, high temp, overspeed etc leave it to a safe height and throttle back - if it is running OK, but if there are still problems there are then two further 2 options :-
Option 1
Shut it down, possibly dump fuel and then land at a suitable enroute airfield - in this case, to my mind, somewhere (JFK?) in the continental US - with available BA engineering cover and multiple onward flight options so as to disrupt the pax as little as possible
Option2
Have Engineering interrogate the onboard engine real-time parameter database via SatCom - both prior and subsequent to shutting it down - and THEN, and ONLY THEN, decide whether it would be possible (and/or sensible) to continue on 3 engines to destination (which incidentally MUST be a main base) after consultation with both Maintrol and (if possible) the Duty Flight Manager.
It happened to me personally twice in my almost 9 years on the 744, but, in both cases, luckily at a much later stage in the flight - each time it necessitated a 'precautionary' shutdown for an engine low oil warning which, in both cases, subsequently turned out (happily) to have been an indication problem. We continued in one case on 3 engines for seven hours from the Far East
The first question that I always asked myself (and, if possible, always asked Engineering) when a similar situation occurred was :-
"If I shut this engine down - would it be possible to restart and use the engine in a future emergency?" (Eric Moody's incident springs to mind!!)
If the considered answer was 'yes' then I would continue provided that my crew and I were happy there was no structural integrity issues and they ALL agreed to continue to destination. In this situation on my flightdeck democracy reigned and with even just ONE pilot vote against continuing it immediately became re land or divert time!!
If the answer was 'no' then, before deciding to continue, I and my crew would consider the fuel state, predicted fuel burn, achievable flight level, possible enroute alternates, enroute terrain, enroute/destination weather and crew state (lack of sleep, tiredness? etc) in much greater detail before deciding whether or not to continue with the flight
One other point to make (as has been made in several previous posts) is that the B747-400 is in fact certificated as a 3 engined a/c, in fact both the manual and autoland parameters are the same for both 3 & 4 engined approaches (full flap, crosswind, minima and no minima autoland etc etc)