Originally Posted by
43Inches
I know people on the ground who witnessed the whole event, QF landed in very poor conditions, possibly much worse than if they had held for a while.
That is not supported by the facts in the ATSB report. Here are some excerpts:
At 0946 the crew of Qantas 735 broadcast that they had landed at Mildura.
The first SPECI indicating the presence of fog was issued at 0948, showing visibility as 900 m in fog and cloud overcast at 100 ft.
Subsequent SPECIs show that the visibility at Mildura reached a low of 200 m in fog at 1011.
The first SPECI showing no fog, but with mist and overcast cloud at 100 ft being issued at 1048.
So conditions
deteriorated after QF landed, they did not improved. The first SPECI which didn’t have FG on it was issues over an hour after they landed. Holding would not have improved their ability to get in, as indeed was proven by the difficulty that VA experienced shortly afterward.
Again, there is no real equivalency to the SQ incident. After being confronted with unforcast fog in ADL both VA and QF were confronted with unforcast fog in MIA. The TEMPO was only for BKN 600’. So again the forecast was wrong and conditions much worse than advertised.
VA also made an approach below minima prior to declaring a mayday but you don’t criticise them, only Qantas. Rather than analyse this serious SQ incident you only seem interested in taking pot shots at QF over an unrelated historical incident.