I would let everybody on the frequency know, that I have some serious problems. Best done by using the magic word, MAYDAY. In my case the aircraft wants to change about half of the air below to be above, even more if heavy and in icing conditions.

Drift down might be considered, as we fly around the Alps, or even better to Georgia with its caucasian mountains getting up to 5.000 m.

Homebase is always a good idea, if you don`t get yourself into deeper troubles because of a large distance. 100 NM is not that far, but why flying away from a perfectly usable airport? Decisions have to be made, thats all. After that, discuss it, learn from it, agree or disagree with the actions but keep a profesionell level throughout the discussion.

chris

Since Kegworth, general policy of most airlines would be to land at nearest suitable airport. But, in any event, we don't no the full story. It is quite likely that what was done on the day was perfectly acceptable, so let's wait to hear the facts.

Soddit ,you cannot spell ,plus the QRH item is the same for B737/B757/B767.
Stop splitting hairs. <img src="cool.gif" border="0">

mjenkinsblackdog, the QRH says NEAREST SUITABLE AIRPORT. There is no mention of below, ahead, behind or to either side.

If you were an experienced jet pilot you wouldn't be stirring the cr@p here. You wouldn't question a crews decision to carry on to DUB if they had an engine failure overhead MAN whilst in the cruise. The ONLY time a crew would drop down from overhead in the cruise to an airport directly below is if there were NO OTHER SUITABLE airport within 100nm. It looks like you are just trying to stir the pot because you would know that there are plenty of suitable airports within gliding distance from overhead MAN.

A jet cruising at or above FL310 and experiencing an engine shutdown would need at least 100nm to lose the altitide whether it was in a straight line to an airport ahead, behind or underneath. An engine shutdown is not a mayday situation unless there are additional problems such as a fire or anything that is immediately endangering lives. A mayday may be called initially but once an engine has been shut down and provided there is no fire, severe damage or separation then the nature of the emergency can be downgraded to a PAN which will still provide priority handling by ATC.

So, a B737 suffering an engine failure overhead MAN en route to DUB would require several minutes to identify the problem, perform the recall drills, perform the QRH checklist whilst handling any driftdown if necessary due to weight. Considering the distance from MAN to DUB is approximately 130nm and also considering that the a/c still has an operating engine and is perfectly capable of flying on that single engine and considering that the operator has a maintenance base there and considering that the original destination was DUB anyway, all considered in that order, by the time a decision is made the a/c would have been requesting descent for DUB anyway!

So mjenkinsblackdog, unless you are really an experienced jet pilot leave the decisions to the real pilots who were there and are trained to make those decisions in the first place. I wouldn't advise making those kind of cut and dried statements with such authority if you are being considered for a command.