Originally Posted by
jrl767
no, the point is that many FAA-approved emergency procedures require the flight crew to land at the NEAREST suitable airport for reasons of SAFETY ... availability of airline staff NEVER enters into consideration
And here is an example, a Frontier flight going from SEA-DEN and had an inflight emergency and landed at Yakima. That is only 103 miles from SEA but you didn't see them try to return back to Seattle.
Incident: Frontier A319 near Yakima on Dec 14th 2011, unruly coffee pot