Gonzo - thankyou. I guess a variation upon my question would be - ok, you can land here but we would like you to use the short runway rather than the main or perhaps if the airfield had such an option, we would like you to use the grass runway rather than the tarmac. Before our GA bretheren get too upset, my query was not a dig at anyone just a simple request for the actual position in the real world which is to a greater or lesser extent dictated by commercial issues. Lets face it, sometimes in a potential emergency situation you have to make a choice; lose an engine in a single and you need to find a field immediately - lose an engine in a large commercial jet and you still have options (hopefully). If I have an emergency which requires an immediate landing, I still may have choices to make - do I go for A which is just long enough but has a stonking crosswind and cloudbase at or around minima or do I fly another five minutes to B whcih gives me an extra couple of thousand feet and a runway into wind. If I have an uncontainable cabin fire I need to get this heap on the ground NOW but if I have lost an engine or a hydraulic system my priorities may be slightly different - I may still have to land sooner rather than later but I have options to consider.
Going back to the topic of our friend in the light single - an engine about to give up the ghost, get it on the ground whilst you can - control problem, again get it on the ground now - but different problems such as the one in question assuming no fuel issue may require some different reasoning. The easy answer of course is to say that the pilot has the right to elect to land wherever he wishes under the umbrella of flight safety - the question was posed directly to the controllers amongst us who MAY have to consider other issues when faced with such circumstances.
Last edited by beamer; 9th August 2006 at 16:29.