Every instrument approach procedure we fly ends in one of two ways: We either see the runway environment and land, perhaps after circling to align ourselves with a runway, or we don’t. When we don’t, we fly a missed approach procedure designed to get the aircraft back to a safe altitude and position from which the next steps can be taken. Those next steps can include trying the same approach again, shooting a different one or diverting to a different airport. It’s not that hard.
And missed approaches themselves shouldn’t be that difficult: Set climb power and either fly straight ahead or turn one way or the other toward a nearby fix once reaching a specified altitude. The exact missed approach we’re to fly is displayed on the plate itself or is as directed by ATC in our approach clearance. Regardless, each miss requires adding power, climbing, probably turning and maybe holding. Yet pilots can’t seem to stop having accidents while flying a miss. So we took a look at some recent NTSB accident reports to learn more about how pilots are missing the miss. They seem to break down into two main categories, and we’ve supplied an example of each.
