But he landed only 167 miles short of his destination and presumably had the
required reserves at that time. A great circle route between LA and London
crosses Greenland, passes near Iceland and then overflies Scottland and the
UK. I don't think that you can make the case that there was a big risk of
running out of fuel far from an airport. In fact, he could have landed in
Scottland with about 40 minutes more fuel than he landed with. It will be
interesting to see what the whole story is. It probably comes down to
deciding to continue after passing each suitable airport with plenty of fuel
to reach the next suitable airport. The airports are only 500-700nm apart
so he was always less than an hour from a suitable airport. I would also
doubt that he made this decision without consulting his company dispatch. I
guess that I might feel differently if the flight was going from LAX to
Sidney and decided not to return or to land at Hawaii.

It seems kind of wierd to me too but then most of the pilots that will weigh
in on this topic continue on one piston engine one every flight and this guy
had three jet engines!!!

I would fly either BA or another airline based on schedule and fare. Are
you safer flying four engine BA airplane or on an somebody else's two engine
airplane?

Mike
MU-2



"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 16:53:08 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote in
et::

So, is this good or bad?

I would say, it sort of depends on from whose point of view you are
making the judgment.

British Airways didn't have to stand the costs involved in dumping
fuel to facilitate landing back at LAX nor compensate passengers $523
each for delays as mandated by the EU three days earlier.

The pilot's decision to press on may have failed to consider head
winds and the added drag of rudder input to compensate for
asymmetrical thrust, thus needlessly endangering the passengers'
lives. After all, it was necessary for him to land 167 miles short of
his destination in order to satisfy minimum fuel requirements upon
landing at his London destination.

Someone more qualified than me had this to say:

"It's not impossible for him to make it, but he'd be a fool to try
it," said Barry Schiff, a former TWA pilot. "That decision just
doesn't make any sense."

However, Robin Hayes, British Airways' executive vice president for
operations in the United States, said:

"The procedure [continuing a flight on three engines] is within
our normal operating protocols."

So in the end, it's about money v safety.

Let me ask you a question. Given British Airways' stated policy
above, would you choose for your European vacation BA or a US airline
that doesn't have that policy?