Yes the situation could deteriorate, but only as far as the loss of the use of that engine which is not life threatening. However this engine stayed running and there wasn't any indication that it would do otherwise.
IIRC another major European carrier had a very similar event coming out of China. Due to an unexpected increase in fuel burn by one engine they ended up not having enough to return to main base and diverted to somewhere in Europe only to find most of a reverser and all of the 'c' duct were missing on the higher fuel burn engine.
I guess different pilots have different thresholds for diverting but I can tell you that on a four engine boeing I have never diverted for a status message and I would be surprised if my 2 engine colleagues would have in this case. Of course the nature of the route, available diversion airfields enroute and the severity of the failures encountered play a part in the decision making process.
No yaw, no indications of engine vibration or loss of thrust. A shortish flight, with a route over land with good available diversion airfields enroute and no high msa's and a chat with engineering who have access to real time engine data the pilots can't see. I'd have a hard time criticizing the actions of this crew.
Last edited by Locked door; 3rd Sep 2011 at 16:09.