GMM, posters like you are a pain. You ask a fair question and you get good answers from professionals. But that's not good enough and you need to ask what is basically the same question again! Then when posters become a tad cynical with you (quite deservedly) your "innocent little me" defences go up: At the end of the day, my friend, only the Captain will know why he made that decision. He (and quite possibly UPS Ops) no doubt had multiple factors to consider (as already explained to you) and the final outcome was to divert to LHR. He, unlike you, is a professional and he excersised his professionalism by making a decision based on all the information that was at his disposal at the time. So be it.

Here we go again.

A 7700 squawk does not always equal throw the aircraft on the nearest runway, and it's also quite possible ATC requested 7700.

Brilliant!
 

HEATHROW DIRECTOR "Instead of arguing on here, why not ring the Captain and ask him what he thinks he was doing?"

Brilliant! A thousand recommends.

Why do :mad: always gravitate to forums like this one?

I was on freq and it puzzled me I admit.

7700 was at the request of French ATC and he requested fuel dumping for which three minutes would be needed and this was granted upon descending to 30,000ft. Upon enquiry from French ATC as to the nature of the problem the repeated reply was "a mechanical problem".

After a few minutes French ATC said that Heathrow ATC wanted to know the exact nature of the problem. With what seemed like some hesitation the UPS replied with something like "we have been told by Company that we have a mechanical problem but we do not know what it is".

Cue puzzled expressions across the sector.

Shortly after we left the frequency and spent the next hour speculating and theorising. Never did come up with a theory.

I'm sure it was all perfectly reasonable but it did sound curious.

Thanks very much for your input, sounds like Heathrow ATC were wondering why them just as I was :-)

Perhaps you ought to answer your own abusive question, you have far more experience than I do

Thanks for your reply. Although sadly I've attracted a few put-downs here, I'm a pilot, I share the same airspace and airwaves as professional pilots, I'm here to learn and hopefully use that insight to everyone's benefit.

No problems bud.

Quite where to start with that I don't know.....if you DO ring the Captain .....post his reply here :)

Oh, we're in Spotters Corner now. Odd.

My sources suggest it as a concern about a thrust reverser system.