right, not
I have close to 10,000 hours on the Boeing 747 Classic. I am amazed at the simple-mindedness of most of the responses to this topic in other threads and the start of this new one. I am sure a lot of them are made by people who are totally clueless in regards to operating quads and take their bias in operating twins or worse no real aircraft into their opinions on this subject. Currently I fly the Boeing 767-300ER, the decision making process is greatly simplified when it comes to an engine failure on this aircraft (the obvious being land at nearest suitable airport). In a quad your options don’t boil down to only this decision, you can take into account all the complex operating conditions you find yourself in and make a reasonable decision to continue to your destination.
I have no opinion on the BA flight from LAX. I will leave that to all the chair warmers who have an apparent infinite amount of time to consider all the complex issues and combine this with their great experience to come to a reasoned decision. All the factors involved in this case are too varied to even attempt to discuss here and no one on this forum has these facts. I am totally comfortable with the idea that “landing at the nearest suitable airport” is not the only (or even the safest) way to go. On my Africa flights I would love to have some more options on the 767 compared to setting it down in some of the lovely places down there.
Personally I have had to shut down an engine on two occasions on the Boeing 747 Classic. Both happened during cruise. On one occasion we had three hours left on our flight to our original destination (it occurred at 30W), on the other occasion it occurred with six hours left in our flight to our original destination. Both failures were clearly related to only the engine that we shut down, and on both occasions we continued to our planned destination. I was absolutely comfortable with the decisions made on these flights. Of course one of the considerations is the probability of an additional failure but these things also have to be kept in perspective. If you can’t do this simple thing I don’t think you would have a very comfortable existence in our business.
So I will leave the philosophizing to the very knowledgeable chair warmers that I sometimes read on pprune. In the end it might even bring with it more rules and regulations from our civil servants who think they have a winner in this subject (just what this business needs). In the meantime I don’t have any options worth mentioning and will “land at nearest suitable airport”, but only because it says so in the rulebook for my aircraft and for a twin it is a very sensible thing to do. I miss the 747.
Regards O.