people immediately assume all the professionals involved
are idiots with less knowledge and poorer judgement than themselves. Most
of the accusatory statements made here are incorrect and based on a lack
of
knowledge of the situation, a lack of knowledge of 747 design,
certification, and operations, and a lack of knowledge of airline
operations
and commercial considerations, as well as a lack of knowledge of the
activities of national airworthiness bodies like the FAA and JAA.

Clearly the crew are not "idiots" - it's interesting however that their are
also comments being made in the media from people who are eminately
qualified to comment that it was the wrong decision. My experience in
dealing with individual departments (like maintenance) is that none of them
ever take a step back to look at the bigger picture.

Just because they "could" to it doesn't mean to say they "should" do it.