It is certainly not to land at nearest suitable airport. That is the requirement of the twinjet - and for obvious reasons. It is absolutely not required on a 747 as there is so much system redundancy available. Each situation should be considered on its merits. In 23 years on the 747 (Classic and -400), I have had several in-flight shutdowns - none were significant events - and in two cases we continued on to destination.
I'm very much with
Rainboe on this one ...
JD
