Originally Posted by marlborobell
Eek. You're not certain of the engine's integrity and you go 300 miles beyond the nearest suitable airport (which, as the flight track at flightaware.com clearly shows, was almost certainly YUL)? I realize they wanted to get the passengers on to London conveniently, and that JFK was a good place to take them from that perspective, but I'd love to read the report they'll clearly be submitting (per AEpilot76's posting of the federal requirements) showing why going on to JFK was as safe as landing at YUL.
The engine was apparently running within specs until they actually started the approach. Diverting was out of an abundance of caution -- they didn't have to do anything until the engine failed. And even THEN they would have been fine even if they'd been out over the atlantic given ETOPS requirements. Funny how people suddenly want to be super over cautious, but still complain about delays, etc.
If I were on that flight i would be thrilled they'd gotten me to a major hub where I don't have to deal with customs and there are a ton of flights to get me on to LHR. Given that there was no safety issue at all with diverting. We're talking about a big passenger jet -- come on, 300 miles is nothing, it takes what, 100+ just to do a descent at the normal rate? And there are hundreds of airports in new england and upstate NY (and likely dozens with appropriate runways) if things had gone really wrong quickly.