B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Type 670
Situational Awareness; Communication Breakdown
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe
Aircraft Equipment Problem Dissipated; Flight Crew Diverted; Flight Crew Landed As Precaution; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft
FO performing climbout. Passing about 12;000; the Engine 1 Overheat caution illuminated. He kept flying; I ran the QRH. Pulled engine to idle. 3 minutes later; the overheat light went out. We stopped the climb at 15;000. Over a period of 5 minutes; we gradually pushed engine 1 up to the thrust limit caret. No overheat recurred. We continued the climb to 32000 while trying to gain voice contact with dispatch. The ACARS typing and comm delay exacerbated the situation. The flight plan had us flying for 2 hours over the Gulf of Mexico. The engine had just had an overheat. I wanted a flight plan which kept us closer to a suitable airfield than the middle of the Gulf. No worthwhile communications (even trying commercial radio). Discussing with the FO; he concurred with a divert to a maintenance location to have the engine looked at; before potentially putting passengers and aircraft in a poor situation. It was 10 minutes after I started the divert before I saw a flight plan which would have kept us near suitable airports.The lack of VHF repeaters in Central America added to the complexity of the situation. HF radios did not ever get through; either. The divert went quickly and we safely landed the aircraft. The engine; after following the checklist; was not restricted from any portion of the envelope. We did not have a degraded engine; as far as throttle position was concerned. However; since the overheat system did not register a fault; but it HAD registered an overheat; prompted my decision to land and have it looked at by maintenance; rather than proceed for 2 1/2 hours after an overheat.
[Report narrative contained no additional information.]
B737 flight crew reported an engine overheat during climb. After running QRH procedures; the crew elected to divert for a maintenance inspection.