Ijustdrive
Its a shame if the vis was 500M that the controller missed that extra 5 in the middle of the readout that vanished seconds later.
Two things:
1) As an ATCO, I'm surprised you want me to lie to you. Shall I conveniently forget the extra few knots of wind that might put you out of crosswind limits? How about knocking a few seconds off the vortex wake delay? Or not mentioning that turbulence the last lander reported? I wouldn't do any of those things-it's called professionalism.
Don't get me wrong, if you have an emergency, I will do everything I need to to help you, and if it involves bending or breaking rules, so be it - in an emergency all bets are off and I'll discuss with the rulemakers after you're on the ground.
2) Wouldn't work anyway - all IRVR readings are monitored and recorded and, believe me, the CAA do check them against RT tapes to make sure we pass IRVR changes as soon as they happen (as required by the air traffic bible)
At the risk of repeating myself, from an ATC viewpoint this crew got it right. They didn't land out of limits, they diverted to a suitable alternate and they declared a PAN to ensure that when they reached that alternate they were given a priority approach. The PAN issue is a bit of a smokescreen here - from my POV it's always better to declare a PAN now to prevent a MAYDAY later. Any ATCO worth the name will have no problem with you doing so. If the Jet2 guys are reading this thread, and I'm sure they are, good call fellas.
