On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 02:04:01 GMT, Michael 182
wrote:

That said, "a failed alternator hardly qualifies as an emergency landing
situation".

Might be best if you qualify that a little better: a failed alternator
in VMC conditions may not be an emergency landing situation. It's
probably safe to assume that someone making a precautionary landing
on the condition is probably worried about _something_ and there are
an awful lot of _somethings_ that can be going wrong along with a
failing alternator. Electrical fire is not the least of it.

You know, there was that SwissAir flight that terminated off the coast
of Nova Scotia a few years back. They were dumping fuel prior to
landing due to a small electrical problem they were having. If they
had landed overweight, they would've survived. While it's easy to
play Monday-morning quarterback, the point is, FFR, based on past
experience, not to let the small problems develop into big problems.

Morris