Originally Posted by
barit1
They were well above max ldg weight (mass), had no flaps, and only one t/r. Had to burn off a bunch of Jet-A to have a prayer of a successful landing.
As the book has it, it wasn't just burning off fuel that led to the "keep flying" decision, it was taking the time to work through the ECAM actions (of which there were over a hundred) - this enabled them to be *certain* of what was working and what wasn't before they attempted a landing. Kudos to the Captain, who freely admits in his book that his instinct was to get on the ground ASAP, but that he was persuaded to keep flying by the rest of his crew and use that time to assess the aircraft's condition thoroughly.