Visual approaches have been in the news a lot recently. On July 6, Asiana Airlines Flight 214 hit a seawall short of San Francisco’s Runway 28L and crashed. The flight had been cleared for a visual approach to Runway 28L. The ILS was out, but the PAPI was in service, so there was some vertical guidance.
Later that same month, a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 landed nose-wheel first on a visual approach at La Guardia. The nose gear crumpled beneath their feet, making the B-737 far more difficult to steer.
The Vis
Key Takeaways:
- Visual approaches are deceptively risky, accounting for 30% of approach-and-landing accidents, particularly at night, yet often receive insufficient formal training for pilots.
- As an IFR procedure conducted in visual meteorological conditions (VMC), pilots are responsible for navigation, maintaining VMC, and obstacle avoidance, necessitating meticulous pre-planning similar to an instrument approach.
- The article strongly emphasizes flying a stabilized visual approach, requiring the aircraft to be configured, aligned, and on speed by 500 feet AGL, with any instability below this altitude warranting an immediate go-around.
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