If the 747 incident you are talking about is the one where the engine surged on take off, and was subsequently shutdown, it is a different scenario.

An engine surge is generally not a catastrophic failure, it is a breakdown of airflow through the engine, so the shut down as I recall was precautionary, as the crew were unable to clear the surge.

The other point to consider is that a fully loaded, fuelled 747 will be way over its maximum landing weight, so to RTB would mean either burning off fuel, or dumping it to obtain a suitable landing weight. As it has plenty of power on two engines, continuing on 3 would be more than acceptable, albeit at probably a reduced cruise altitude. The aircraft was never more than 45-60 mins away from a suitable diversion, so from my limited commercial knowledge, it was a safe & prudent decision to carry on with the flight.

ETOPs can now run to 180mins for a twin engined aircraft, which does personally make me slighty nervous, but these decisions are not made on a whim, and the engines & airframes today from an engineers point of view are reliable to the point of boredom :ok: