When you get a problem with an aircraft, continuation of the flight may be possible. If it was a trivial one, you just continue, land and write it up in the book (if necessary) so that Maintainence have a record and the next crew who fly the machine are "warned". Given a "big" problem, you may still decide that continuing is still an option so you speak to your company and if they say "continue", you continue. If they say "return", you return. It's their train-set (and we are told, have a bigger picture than us). All the time when you have the aircraft, you always have the power of veto. Safety is never the problem in these cases - it's the protection of the schedules, both today's and tomorrow's. People have paid good money to fly safely from A to B at a certain time and that is, believe it or not, the service we try to deliver.
Last edited by Piltdown Man; 26th Nov 2005 at 21:17.