Originally Posted by
Check Airman
Why would a crew NEED an instrument approach on a VMC night? As far as we know, the windshields weren't cracked. Why would anyone expect a crew to need an approach that was designed to get airplanes down in bad weather, while the weather is good?
There have been many visual approaches flown at night that haven’t ended well. Off the top of my head there was the KAL (at Guam?) and one in Italy which ended up with the ATC serving time in jail (for clearing a pilot request visual approach at night when an instrument approach was available).
I imagine that’s why many airlines have banned visual approaches at night.
Those posters that think DLH ops should have notified SFO several hours in advance that they wouldn’t accept visual separation, how do you think the situation would have then been handled differently?
What is it about 14 hours that was sufficient when 40 minutes wasn’t?
And please bear in mind they only had to stretch a gap by maximum 2 miles to accommodate, they didn’t need a ground stop or a 30 minute gap.