Jet Flies On With One Engine Out on Nonstop Trip to London

"Cockpit Colin" wrote in message
...
... and just because they discussed it with a range of departments still
doesn't mean that they came to the 'right' decision. At the end of the day
the decision to continue can never be called "right or wrong", because
it's
a subjective call - and I appreciate that it was a considered call from an
experienced crew - HOWEVER - what isn't debateable is that to continue the
flight under those circumstances resulted in a lower margin of safety than
had they stayed within the area, dumped fuel, and returned.

Despite your statement it is very debatable. Just because a situation is
subjective does not mean there cannot be right or wrong answers. In this
case the situation was very, but not totally objective. They had a large
number of facts at hand upon which to make the decision.

If another pilot in the same circumstance decided "bugger this" and
returned
for landing would this now be considered the WRONG thing to do?

Identical situations can have multiple correct options.

I wonder how the decision would have been viewed if they (by chance or due
to some unthought of connection) lost the 2nd engine on the same side -
still over weight.

Where did overweight come from? The same place as "they ran out of gas?"

Yes it's controllable, but it's starting to make for a
rather steep mountain to climb to get it back on the ground safely.

Says who? Others in the know say the 747 is very controllable with both
engines on one side out. If a second engine goes you deal with the
situation.

In my opinion they should have landed asap whilst they still had the
luxury
of a large safety margin rather than to continue on in a circumstance
where
it was safe, but only so long as nothing else whet wrong - in short it was
a
gamble, albeit an educated one, but still a gamble.

Getting up every morning is a gamble. Getting on an airplane is a gamble.
Walking down stairs is a gamble. First hand experience.....United flight
between Chicago and Detroit on a 737. More than half way there an engine
totally conks which is a loss of 50 percent of the engines. The decision
was to return to O'Hare even though Detroit was closer. Wanna guess what
the pilot told us was the reason for returning to O'Hare?