The problem is tall buildings to the left (as you approach) and in front. As such the only alternative would be a left base to a very very short final which could leave you exposed to wind opposite to the tail rotor thrust and the attendant problems that go along with that.
The site itself is really not that confined, frankly those who have been posting as such have either never flown it or spend all their time doing "confined" approaches into 2,000 ft runways..
Clearly you don't choose to take the downwind option if there is a better way but in this case there isn't. Does it make it dangerous. No. Does it make it more challenging than the average approach. Yes. Can it be done by a compitent PPL. Yes. This time it didn't work, but people have accidents landing in headwinds, hovering and pretty much every other position they can dream up.
Helicopters have been coming in and out of here for years and there have been no acccidents to my knowledge. This is the unfortunate first.
If a PPL stacked it on a landing into wind then we would ban into wind landings.
Back to my first post, lots that we do in helicopters to get the utility out of them necessitates operating in some form of comromise. There is noting wrong with a downwind landing and there is certainly nothing wrong with the Kai Tak site..
Last edited by generalspecific; 5th May 2009 at 01:02.