Dear hand solo:
I read your post with great interest. In fact you have proven to me that you have NEVER been in the cockpit of a commercial transport plane (well maybe the pilot let you look around for your birthday when you were small).
Just to make sure that I have not lost my mind, I've checked with 5 other airline transport pilots that I know, combined aviation experience about 120 YEARS. They all are persuaded that the decision to continue was based on MONEY! Yes, the almighty Pound Sterling.
More than one of these very experienced pilots has used the term , "WEAK SISTER" or "COMPANY MAN" to describe the PIC of said aircraft. Allowing the decision makers in a nice comfortable concrete structure thousands of miles away in England to analyze an engine.
PLEASE! (this is a popular expression of disbelief, roughly equivalent of GIVE ME A BREAK!)
YOUR own post indicates that YOU seem to place money as a very high decision making factor. Read your own quote about what 5th pod carriage does to fuel consumption and range. Only someone who places money first would write that.
You indicate that the two copilots made their own decision and that the plane would not have continued unless they all agreed.
You must be living in a fantasy world or don't have a clue about CRM or why it came into existence.
You indicate that I don't know about long haul operations. I have listed my flying experience elsewhere on this forum. Yours however seems to be lacking. I am fully aware of such concepts as re-releasing enroute as you have described.
So the crew knew early on that they wouldn't be going to London. Fine. Now you have to expose the passengers to all that fun English motor traffic to get them home.
The one pilot (actually more of an engineer, who has never made one penny as an airline pilot) I spoke with who agrees with the crew about continuing to England gave this logic.
"During WW2, B17's would have an engine shot out over Germany and they would continue back to England rather than land right away ( or should I say REICHT away) in BERLIN>"
Last time I checked, Los Angeles was a friendly place for British Pilots! Let me know if this has changed (gangs aside).
In the world of engineers everything is well thought out and goes as predicted. IF that were reality, Murphy would never have come up with his laws.
You must be an engineer Hand Solo. Perhaps using your mighty degree to analyze the flight characteristics of Golf Balls.
I recall a 3 engine L1011 losing all three engines due to a common maintenance defect. This EASTERN airlines plane managed a safe landing in MIAMI after restarting one engine which caught on fire crossing the threshold of the runway.
NO, this could never happen in a British Airways 747 could it?
Except a BA 747 did lose thrust on all 4 engines flying into a Volcanic cloud. It was the pilots that got them going again to a safe landing, not a bunch of engineers at the other end of a "satphone".
The decision to continue to England was based on MONEY and not the safety, comfort or well being of the passengers.
No, Mr. Solo, time for YOU TO GIVE THIS A REST.
regards
jon
PS. Don't think for a minute that I don't respect many British Pilots. D.P. Davies would probably have much to say on this subject were he still with us (please inform me if he still is, but his health was failing back in 1985)