PAVE the External Pressure overwhelmed his decision making process maybe? Who knows…given his past experiences landing the year before in marginal conditions on the same airfield fogged his decision making process. The resilience on automation did the rest….I am bit baffled and shocked reading the report..knowing he had his young kids on board….indeed an IFR approach in VFR only, the missed approach segment should indicate that going beyond Mapt in IMC your in deadzone given the surrounding terrain.
RobertL18C wrote:
Mein bisschen Deutsch means I will have to read the report a couple of times, but isn’t the approach procedure a misnomer?
Anything that does not take you straight to the runway threshold is called “Todesfalle” (e.g. death trap), as far as I know only GPS to THR & ILS to THR does this in a reliable way (this RNP approach while based on GPS is just like many of VOR/NDB approaches where the Nav Aids sits lot of NM away from the airport usually on top of the mountains, hills or deep inside hostile forests….not the pretty things to see 1st when becoming visual out of clouds and usally not the right places to be for mistakes or free-style improvisation)
Vref wrote:
the missed approach segment should indicate that going beyond Mapt in IMC your in deadzone given the surrounding terrain
The plates says look at “VFR Chart” which is not coded in GPS/FMS waypoint guidance and has funky flight path arcs and not obstacle compliant…if one choses to go beyond MAPt & low than DA for some reason, it’s a real death sentence (sort of land or die trying)
On improvisation, if one choses to go that way past MAPt & less than DA (for some personal reasons?) a “straight-in approach” is 100% better to land but leaves no “acceptable way to go missed”: if you want to go missed 200ft abeam THR you will have to turn left and ditch in the cold lake rather than right turn to re-join the published missed segment or outclimb terrain in the north…
PS: I only tested the above statement in a sim with C172, so one need to take it with pinch of salt
I did not try Peter Synt-Vision suggestion nor F16
It’s simple. This approach procedure is made to allow a safe descend to a defined point at which one can establish
A) there are CLEARLY ZERO clouds = it is CLEAR VMC
B) anything else → go around
and every pilot knows this. There are even clear words about it on the IAP chart.
It’s not designed to bring one to the start of a self made, half visual and half ifr procedure scud running in a valley.
„Toothpicking“ around for holes in cloud and fog is foolish and dangerous enough in flatlands, let alone when surrounded by mountains.
The reports of someone being „conservative“ etc.. are pretty useless IMHO. Means nothing and might be more saving face then anything else.
A conservative pilot doesn’t fly like that and continue whenthe aerodrome INFO guy clearly states the below marginal wx conditions.
Not pulling your leg, for this approach A) may get you killed: what if you get out of clouds at 2200ft agl & 12km visibility (with 7% climb gradient) and you proceed but can’t “visually find a runway to land on”? in proper IFR, you should go missed in A) if you can’t see the runway (or it’s env) at the MAPt, clear of clouds and good visibility means nothing if you have no tamarc to sit on in a valley with an overcast…
The pilot went deeper than this scenario and there is no question that weather was hardcore
Ibra wrote:
a “straight-in approach” is 100% better
The pilot most probably correctly assessed that in this situation a straight in landing would have led to an accident: With s comparatively short runway which is significantly contaminated and an SR22 that is not that easy to slow down after a steep approach and tailwind he would have almost certainly overshoot the runway – and yes, that would have been a substantially better crash than what has happened afterwards but if he would have been able to take rational decisions he wouldn’t have tried the approach in the first place.
Ibra wrote:
Not pulling your leg, for this approach A) may get you killed: what if you get out of clouds at 2200ft agl & 12km visibility (with 7% climb gradient) and you proceed but can’t “visually find a runway to land on”? in proper IFR, you should go missed in A) if you can’t see the runway (or it’s env) at the MAPt, clear of clouds and good visibility means nothing if you have no tamarc to sit on in a valley with an overcast…The pilot went deeper than this scenario and there is no question that weather was hardcore
If you can’t find a runway visually then it obviously isn’t VMC.
I don’t understand what you mean, sorry.
At WZ803 it has to be established if
A) it is VMC = continue visually
B) it is not = go around
Anything else (Option C aka the “I’ll try to wiggle around a little”) is killing zone.
The IAP chart also states: “Pilots shall be well familiar with the terrain in the area of Zell am See.”
The question what exactly happened is of course interesting, but it’s not relevant really.
The relevant question considering the airfield was not VMC is:
Was a missed approach initiated at the MAP? No.
Snoopy wrote:
If you can’t find a runway visually then it obviously isn’t VMC.
VMC in airspace Golf in Austria is 1,5km visibility. The MAPt of this procedure is about 4NM from the threshold – so almost 5 times more than VMC requirements. (Not saying it is wise to fly there with minimum VMC).
The procedure we are talking about is not an IFR visual approach or a circling, it is a flight rule change to VFR at the MAPt – therefore it would be perfectly legal to continue past MAPt in VMC even if one has no visual contact to the runway (big difference to a circling approach).
Legally yes. Still, worthless. Practically it’s a controlled arrival or cloud breaking procedure to a point in order to make the judgement call to continue in clear weather.
There must be something going on in pilot’s brains which clouds (no pun!) judgement. Perhaps it’s mental capacity / task saturation which inhibits rational thinking at the end of a flight / during an approach.
The IR learning objectives could be adapted and include training for approach ban, and also to treat every approach as a planned go around / missed approach unless conditions permit a safe landing.
Even if it was legal, in this case it was so obviously not the right thing to do.
It seems clear the pilot was in IMC at the MAP so that’s not legal.
The reason for the high DH is that the specimen aircraft doesn’t have the climb performance for the missed approach, if one goes lower. If the DH was 200ft you would need the previously mentioned F16 to clear the obstacles on the runway heading.
