FAR 91.175 lays out exactly when you can descend below MDA and land—or does it? One pilot’s skip of a stepdown inside the FAF while VMC sparked a regs controversy.
The right time to descend
The M.O. of IFR magazine is bringing to daylight all those little corners of instrument flying where the real-world practices differ from the regs, or at least where playing the game a bit differently than you learned in ground school has payoff without jeopardizing safety.
Key Takeaways:
- A pilot was found to be in violation of FAR 91.175 for descending below a charted stepdown altitude inside the Final Approach Fix (FAF) while on an IFR approach, even though they had the runway in sight in Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC).
- The article concludes the violation was technically correct because FAR 91.175's allowances for descending below a Minimum Descent Altitude (MDA) or Decision Altitude (DA) only apply where an MDA/DA is explicitly published, which was not the case for the segment leading to the missed stepdown.
- To legally achieve an earlier descent for a straight-in landing in such scenarios, pilots should request a visual approach from ATC or cancel IFR as soon as the runway is in sight, rather than unilaterally deviating from the published instrument approach procedure.
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