I don’t come here to criticise, I come here to learn. I think I have learned a few things from this thread, which makes it worthwhile.
I first listened to the video when the thread started. My immediate reaction was that the pilots should have been more specific about what they needed: eg “We are unable ILS, we need an RNAV approach”.
But I didn’t say anything, because who am I to criticise? I’m glad I did because I have subsequently listened to it again, and now have a completely different conclusion.
It’s easy to criticise when you are sitting in an airchair, and don’t have a rapidly dwindling 7200kgs in your tanks, and possibly don’t fully understand what is wrong with your aircraft, although superior systems knowledge could help with that.
I think it turned out that they ended up happy to fly an ILS (Cat I) approach in LNAV and VNAV. They may have worked out that if they didn’t attempt to couple the ILS to the autopilot, that they could actually fly a legal and safe ILS approach, provided the minima were above CAT I.
It appears that that is what they did. And perfectly legal (and sensible). There may be some who will state “you can’t fly an ILS in LNAV/VNAV”. To those, I preemptively suggest that you have a think about that.
I therefore reject all the comments on this thread about “they should have flown an RNAV”. I also reject any suggestion that a PAN or MAYDAY was required.
They ended up flying an ILS approach in raw data using an autopilot coupled to LNAV and VNAV. That is surely the safest outcome, and I’ve had a couple of weeks to come up with that decision, these guys only had minutes.
So, yes, I say congratulations to both the pilots and ATC, and I’ve learned a lot from it.
Regards all, Fred.