Originally Posted by
ApolloHeli
I think the Safety Recommendation 2021-027 stands out and I believe that PinS approaches should be widely developed and be available for civil onshore helicopter operations. Planning and flying IFR en-route and provides a black & white 'visual, landing' or 'go around' decision at the end of an instrument procedure, which offers easier decision making than scud running and saying "I'm just going to try one more mile" (in my opinion).
I believe that knowing that the flight would be IMC and planning to use a PinS approach at the end also makes the possibility of not reaching the destination due to weather much more difficult to ignore and necessitates a back-up IFR diversion, which in this case seemed to have been ignored as the possibility of IIMC was not considered and Wellesbourne was discussed as the diversion (Birmingham was only brought up by the crew as a diversion once they had already gone IIMC).
Couldn’t agree more. So many lessons to learn from this that it needs to be re-read and digested numerous times. PinS won’t be the answer to everyone’s problems as many corporate variants of 92, 109, 76 aren’t appropriately equipped, and should they exist in the U.K. PinS would be expensive to implement and only useful to well frequented sites which makes up a small proportion of the overall charter market. Is any variant of S92 certified for PinS? However for that portion that does frequent the same landing site time and time again, in a fully RNP APCH certified modern machine like a 145/169, and is willing to invest in approach design and certification, it has to be said that the UK regulator have been far from helpful or progressive in approach. At this time the CAA are processing around 10 RNP approaches a year, mostly to airfields with an ILS. The DfT haven’t been overly forward thinking or helpful either, EGNOS SOL service participation ending in a weeks time. Expect the LPV option for U.K. approaches in your FMS to disappear in the next AIRAC cycle post 25/6/21 (15th July). To me it’s depressing that the technology is there to make life safer, but in the U.K. your hands are tied from using it. In continental Europe on the other hand numerous hospitals have PinS approaches and connecting networks. A real shame.