Carruthers:
"This guy apparantly held for ten minutes, that could easily burn his spare ton. Once again lots of key board experts, few facts"
I thought that 20 mins hold at LHR was classed as "no delay". On that basis you should (if able) pitch up with a minimum of 20 mins holding fuel over and above divert + reserve. If he only pitched up with 10 mins .....LHR ....busy ?
I agree that we don't have all the facts and perhaps the guy had just done an 11 hour sector with stronger winds than forecast......who knows. The only fact we know is that he found himself in the uneviable position of being in the sky with less gas than he would like (I think we've all been there once). He took what measures he felt neccessary to "improve" his position and he landed.
There may be some "keyboard experts" around but I find threads such as this useful and interesting - we can (should) all learn from this.
A4