On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 18:08:58 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote in
et::

But he landed only 167 miles short of his destination and presumably had the
required reserves at that time.

Presumably.

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.

Perhaps. I presume there runways adequate for B-747 operation in
Scotland and all those intermediate airports.

It will be interesting to see what the whole story is.

I doubt the "whole story" will ever be completely revealed.

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.

Thanks for that information.

I would also doubt that he made this decision without consulting his company
dispatch.

Right. But given the BA policy, I'm not sure their input was safety
oriented.

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.

Definitely.

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!!!

That brings up another issue. What would you estimate the flight
characteristics of a B-747 to be if the other engine on the wing with
the dead engine had failed? I would guess it would be virtually
uncontrollable without reducing power significantly resulting in a
forced descent.

And another issue is, if the engine failure had been a result of fuel
contamination, how did the PIC determine that the remaining fuel was
safe for continued transcontinental flight?

Additionally, when the engine failed, ATC mentioned sparks being seen.
How did the PIC determine there was no structural damage to the
airframe as a result of the engine failure?

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?

I don't have the requisite experience in airliner operation to begin
to answer that question.