The FAA has announced it plans to cancel 736 instrument approach procedures around the country that the agency has found to be underutilized or redundant. The list was developed based on the FAA’s criteria for canceling instrument approach procedures, a policy that was established on June 27 of last year. The policy was developed through recommendations from the Flight Safety Institute, which received a grant in 2010 to develop such a process.
The list of approaches to be eliminated includes underutilized or redundant procedures using ground-based NDB and VOR navigation sources. While the cuts will be seen countrywide, several states, such as Alaska, California, Michigan, Minnesota and Texas, will each lose dozens of approaches should the proposal be put in effect as written.
According to the Flight Safety Institute, the FAA’s National Aeronautical Navigation Services maintains more than 17,000 instrument approaches. Since the first GPS approach was printed in 1995, hundreds of GPS and RNAV approaches have been added each year, and with NextGen being implemented the number of satellite-based approaches continues to increase.
If you wish to comment on the new proposal, refer to FAA-2015-0783. The comment period on the elimination of instrument procedures closes on May 28.
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