The recent Air China crash at Busan (Flight International 23-29 April) serves to highlight a recurring theme in approach related accidents viz the incompatibility of non-precision approaches with precipitation and poor visibility. Busan is the latest in a list of similar crashes. Accident databases are full of examples.
Pending installation of precision approach equipment, a simple, though expensive, procedure is the radar monitoring of aircraft altitude in anything but near visual meteorogical conditions (VMC). The concept of a non-precision approach in poor visibility is no longer valid.
Capt Prakash Goday
Singapore
Source: Flight International
