Originally Posted by
BEagle
Notwithstanding the plethora of maintenance and organisational failures involved, I find it rather surprising that a pilot flying through the overhead at 8000ft, with a surface W/V of 220/11G18 for RW29, 29km vis. and few (less than 2 oktas) of cloud below 6000ft didn't fly a simple spiral descent to High Key?
Probably because a spiral FL isn't as simple as you insinuate and quite easy to mess up with serious consequences, especially so with some of the immediate area built up - Helston to N and families quarters to S. If the engine is running smoothly with an oil caption (no other symptoms) the teaching has been, for the last decade or so, to fly a straight in fixed power approach, ideally over an unpopulated area. As such, pilot did 100% the right thing.