Originally Posted by Gretchenfrage
Remember another incident a few years ago when a Saab got caught in one of the most severe squall lines in northern Europe? They diverted twice to avoid it and found themselves on final of a big airport. There the wind exceeded the maximum and ATC closed it. The captain diverted once again just to run out of fuel and crash the aircraft on a closed airport into a wall across the runway. Luckily no one got hurt.
The situation was similar, the skipper lacked the captaincy to declare fuel emergency and tell ATC that they're going to put it down anyway, as there was a lighted runway, rescue service, observer etc.
To me the Belair skipper was right.
GF
I agree with you that the Belair captain was 100% right in thinking outside the box and forcing an autoland on this CAT I ILS. I don´t understand what the big deal is all about...
The only thing I can think of is the lack of taking extra fuel. I remember ZRH can be quite foggy in the mornings and something must have been in the TAF´s. I haven´t been to good ol´ ZRH in ages, but what happened to a CAT III ILS on runway 14? Was that no option for the Belair 767 crew?
Small remark regarding the Saab incident: forcing a 767 to make an autoland on a downgraded CAT I runway in CAT III visibility conditions (from the BFU link provided it appears the ILS equipment was
not downgraded, only the RVR and wind meters) is quite a bit different from forcing a small bouncing turboprop onto a runway in windshear, heavy rain and thunderstorm conditions and hope you will walk away from it...