[jquery]

An aggressive pilot that declares an emergency simply to avoid diverting won't be a pilot for long. The ATC did nothing wrong.

[danielschonfeld]

I beg to differ. He didn’t divert, a diversion was pushed down his throat.

It’s also arguable that the diversion was the lesser safe course of action given his location.

[jquery]

"if we are not set up for base soon, we will have to declare fuel emergency and that would really ** up your sequence"

At that point ATC offered vectors to the alternate. A diversion was never pushed down his throat.