Tight Circle

Circling an airport after an instrument approach procedure (IAP) to land on a runway other than the one aligned with the IAP is something all instrument-rated pilots have practiced. Its a maneuver that places an airplane relatively close to the ground-sometimes at half the traffic-pattern altitude-and can require steeply banked turns.

Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside

Tuesday, July 21, 2015 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Circling approaches are inherently dangerous due to low altitude, slow airspeeds, and potential for steep banks, which significantly increase stall speed and reduce safety margins, especially in adverse weather conditions.
A fatal 2013 accident demonstrated these risks when a pilot, executing a circle-to-land maneuver in gusty, instrument conditions, flew too close to the runway, requiring an aggressively banked turn that led to a stall.
The NTSB determined the probable cause was the pilot's failure to maintain airspeed while banking aggressively in and out of clouds, resulting in an aerodynamic stall and uncontrolled descent, highlighting the need for wider patterns or missed approaches.

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Circling an airport after an instrument approach procedure (IAP) to land on a runway other than the one aligned with the IAP is something all instrument-rated pilots have practiced. It’s a maneuver that places an airplane relatively close to the ground—sometimes at half the traffic-pattern altitude—and can require steeply banked turns.

Of course, steep banks close to the ground are an invitation for a stall-spin accident when the vertical lift component is traded for the horizontal. Since circling is usually performed in poor weather, it can be a busy time: In addition to keeping the airport and intended runway in sight, pilots must also maneuver the airplane at a relatively low speed. Of course, slow airspeeds, steep banks and low altitudes are the recipe for fatal stall-spin accidents. There just isn’t enough altitude to recover.