Originally Posted by
megan
Question from SLF regarding the Air New Zealand DC-10 Erebus accident to jet airline crews.
Under what circumstances do you, or would you, plot waypoints? ie the waypoint lat/long onto a chart
Do you accept the flight plan info from your navigation section without question in regard to waypoint lat/long, and the other data?
Many thanks in advance.
At my company we never type in LAT/LONG waypoints. Times we might generate a user waypoint might include “hold 30nm from XXXXX” so we could create that point, or “track to a 5nm final” (VMC only) somewhere that doesn’t have that as part of the RNAV. In both cases though we work from a known point, and essentially draw an imaginary line via the FMS to make the new point. If we are asked to track direct to a waypoint that is not on our plan we are allowed to type that waypoint in but must refer to the charts on the EFB to cross check the LAT/LONG before commencing the tracking.
editing to clarify: we use lat long to confirm the stand/bay position when initialising the FMS and we could physically type in a lat long to track to but procedurally do not.