Norman SF-so the Airbus was at max angle of attack and only allows so much backstick...right? Did they use max thrust and later have the engines inspected?
The Captain described at the beginning could kill everybody else if he leaves the charted airspace-not just himself. Read up on the 757 crash at Cali, Columbia, plus at least dozens of others. My first procedure turn (in a transport jet) was just west of high mountains in Bozeman, Montana (BZN). Luckily, the VOR is right on the airport and the ILS localizer is used.
The last time was about three years ago at Kalispell, MT-my first time there. Had taken all the approach charts home before the trip even began. On arrival over the pitch-black huge mountains just several miles east of the airport, Salt Lake Center said "would you like to do the VOR approach to a circling approach?" I realized that the controller was a jerk. Told the FO that he was crazy, and we wanted the normal procedure turn on the localizer.
The one thing that helps is to have already studied all the approach charts and we used about 180 knots outbound (about 3 miles/minute). You can only go 10 miles outbound, can you not? At 280, you cover over half of the protected airspace in just one minute.
You don't want to create any unnecessary challenges near mountains or on slippery runways. Some of those mountain airports have un-forecast snow (no snow removal late at night) or fog (from the lakes), and the tower people are gone. Snow can quickly cover up all of your runway lights. One crew found this and had no alternate fuel.
