...very interesting reading indeed on this thread...but what's the very basic idea of an NPA (or any approach for that matter) in the first place?............to get visual from IMC conditions & complete the task at hand, land !
We in aviation have benifited from our flying buddies of years gone by from their unfortunate incidents/accidents, all learnt from having a go. There was no other way.
The NPA although fraught with all sorts of traps for the unaware is basicly a good idea using the most accurate triangulation(& more) format known to mankind. Flying is by it's very nature dangerous (as is sitting at an outside restaurant in SYD only to have the old 'golden mike' spray a few nasty words at you, see Lawsies silly antics). The authorities responsible for the design & format of these NPA approaches are just like us pilots, their human with many faults and without all the answers. It just takes time to get it right by trial & error as awful & silly as that sounds! Sure there will be accidents resulting from perhaps poorly designed charts etc. & even with perfect surveyed/designed charts there will always be deaths from simply the one thing you cannot perfect, & that's US, the boy & girls who have the final say on anything in aviation !:-)
I for one feel that NPA's are good, they do the job at getting us where we need to be & that's what it's all about at the end of the day. There's zillions of these approachs being conducted world wide every day. day in day out, if they where that bad then the evening news would be all sad:-(
Let's learn from our 'brothers' mistakes & do it right, the next time:-)
Capt Wally-)