Is this the same FAA that allowed a certain 747 operator to ferry one of their aircraft, with only 3 engines physically attached to the wing, due to cracks being found on the engine mounts?

Aircraft are often ferried with failed systems but the important difference between those flights and this BA flight is that passengers are not allowed to fly on ferry flights. Not to mention that a mechanic must insure that the failed system are secured.

There is definitely a political angle here and a good way of showing this is that the FAA (as do many organisations) have a double standard on certain issues when it is convenient to them.

I guess I don’t see a double standard as the “problem” that the FAA had with the flight wasn’t that there was a 3 engine aircraft flying but that an aircraft was flying after an engine was shutdown. As others have said this was very poor airmanship which the FAA and other national aviation administrations frown upon.

This has very little to do with how many engines the aircraft has.