Originally Posted by
neilki
Direct from my QRH
CAUTION:
Dependent upon the severity of the situation, the flight crew should expedite the landing. the crew should also consider an overweight landing, tailwind landing, ditching or a forced off-airport landing.
How severe is it? We could read the UPS or Swissair CVR transcript. It was very 'Severe' -Long before they realized..
I doubt Asiana lost many customers from PPRune; but it sounds like a serious evaluation of their company culture may be in order.
My first instinct is head for the nearest airport, then consider suitability. The aircraft becomes incidental and only exists to protect the pax & crew when the machine thinks it's on fire, or you believe it is...
In fact, if you look at Swissair, UPS(747 and DC-8), FedEx, Asiana(747), Nationair, Air Canada, Varig, Pan Am, SAA, Saudia...you will find that they all knew within minutes that there was an actual fire on board and things went quickly downhill.
But playing the devils advocate again and looking at the remote oceanic scenario in a widebody jet, you divert to the nearest suitable airport which is a remote island that is perhaps 90 minutes away with the smoke/fire light remaining illuminated after all that time with not a hint of unusual smell and the reality that false warnings do happen and not infrequently on a variety of aircraft types.
Will you land immediately or consider heading further away to a more convenient airport perhaps after another hour of loitering around your nearby remote island with still no hint of anything unusual.