Discrepancies in Aircraft Runway Visible Range (RVR)

If your aircraft's instrument landing system cannot go below half a mile, you will find trouble with Jeppesen charts, which measure runway visible range by one-eighth of a mile increments.

jmiller

Friday, December 04, 2015 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Jeppesen, a leading chart provider, mistakenly published 3/8 statute mile (SM) visibility as the equivalent for 1800 RVR on some ILS approach charts.
This conversion conflicts with U.S. government regulations and guidance (TERPS, AIM, 14 CFR Part 91.175), which dictate that 1/2 SM is the lowest legal visibility for civilian Category I (CAT I) approaches.
Pilots relying on the incorrect 3/8 SM conversion could inadvertently violate regulations, risking enforcement action, especially for commercial operators.
While Jeppesen is correcting these errors, the critical takeaway for pilots is that 1/2 SM is the absolute minimum legal visibility for CAT I approaches, irrespective of any potentially outdated chart information.

See a mistake? Contact us.

It’s rumored that bean-counters at TWA in the nineties determined that switching from Jeppesen to government charts would save $20 million a year. The idea was quickly squashed by the safety department. Twenty million a year wasn’t worth an accident due to misread charts.

Of chart providers, Jeppesen is arguably the best and inarguably the most popular, surpassing the U.S. Government’s AeroNav and Lufthansa’s LIDO products. But, underlying it all are humans, and we humans are a fallible lot. We make mistakes. This is exactly what Jeppesen did when it published approach charts with minimums of 1800 RVR being equal to 3/8 mile.