Originally Posted by
Lookleft
You might want to have another read of the report if your only conclusion was the pilot was reluctant to go-around. The fact that the ATSB has issued two recommendations and does not accept EAL's response to it is an indication of their elevated concern that there will be a fatal accident at LHI. The decision to not go-around was the safer option in a situation where the safety margins had already been reduced to a point that it had become a game of Russian Roulette.
You might want to read up on LHI's accident history. There have been a few accidents at LHI over the decades - but none that I'm yet aware of caused by sheer stupidity. It's drummed into every rookie flight student from First Solo onwards that you should ALWAYS be prepared to go around. ..and if you're not prepared to go around at least once and still have enough fuel on board to divert, you have no business flying into LHI. This is not unique: there are plenty of other challenging airports around Oz that are not much different (YHOT in winter is one that springs to mind).
That ATSB is calling out EAL's culture is a good indication that, as a company, they're an accident waiting to happen. Hopefully they'll take this seriously and do something about it.