"DevilsPGD" wrote in message
...
In the last episode of , Sancho Panza
said:

In view of the experience of the JetBlue flight that had hydraulic
problems on departing Las Vegas for New York and had to fly around Vegas
for hours to consume fuel before landing at McCarran, is it accurate to
say that the Airbus A-320 can't dump fuel and that F.A.A., among other
authorities, has approved the plane despite that?

A more interesting question, from a total layman, is this: If they were
willing to fly around in circles for hours, why not fly people to their
destination for hours instead?

Depending on the type of malfunction, I can see them not wanting to be
particularly far from a runway and perhaps this was that type of
situation, but at least from my point of view, if an aircraft isn't
airworthy enough to make a flight, it should be on the ground as soon as
is reasonably possible.

--
Some mistakes are too fun to make only once.

Which is worse, losing an engine on a 747 or losing an hydraulic system on
an A320? Does it matter whether you're near to your maintenance base or
not?

BA had an engine failure on take off from LAX some years ago. After
talking to their technical people in London they elected to continue the
flight. 3 engines working meant they couldn't fly as high as normal and
burned more fuel and, in the end, they had to land at Manchester about 250
miles short of Heathrow. One plausible theory for their actions is that it
would have been easier to replace the engine in London than in Los Angeles
because that's where their maintenance base is.

In the same vein Jet Blue may have wanted to keep the plane at base to
facilitate maintenance.