NEVER pass up a good airport.

This is another sad story about flying past a good airport just to go back where you took off from.

PanAm had a 707 freighter that took off from JFK headed east to Europe. Some where off the Canadian coast, smoke was noticed. The Captain decided to turn around and go back to JFK. The smoke got worse and worse. The plane crashed into the ocean just short of Boston.

Another sad one was the Swiss Air MD-11 out of JFK. Just abeam Halifax, CA the entertainment system gets to burning. Instead of landing RIGHT NOW in Halifax, the crew decides to start a very lengthly fire & smoke checklist. The hull loss was preventable if they did not delay getting it on the ground!  :'(

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Crashed 747F returned to Dubai despite Doha being closer

Pilots of a UPS Boeing 747-400 freighter which caught fire and crashed while
attempting to return to Dubai had been offered Doha International Airport,
some 50nm nearer.

The crew received a fire warning shortly after crossing the BALUS into
Bahraini airspace, just below 32,000ft, en route to Cologne on 3 September
last year.

United Arab Emirates General Civil Aviation Authority investigators state
that the crew informed Bahraini air traffic control that "they needed to
land as soon as possible".

The GCAA adds that the pilots were advised that Doha was 100nm distant, on a
left-hand bearing.

"[Doha] was the nearest airport at the time the emergency was declared," it
states, adding that Dubai was 148nm away and required turning the aircraft
around.

"The captain elected to return to [Dubai] and, following the request to land
as soon as possible to [Bahrain controllers], the crew declared an
emergency."

In order to turn the 747 back to Dubai, the GCAA says, controllers cleared
it for a series of right-hand heading changes. The distance to Dubai,
including the turns and straight-line return sector, amounted to about
150nm.

Although the crippled aircraft managed to reach Dubai, despite smoke in the
cockpit and deterioration in control capability, the jet was unable to carry
out a stable approach to the airport and crashed south of the city.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news