Thanks 411A. You and your views on ‘Dive and Drive’ are well known. Old cultures take time to die out, or like dinosaurs come to a sudden end.
A major theme of the Approach and Landing Accident Reduction (ALAR) initiative was to encourage regulators/providers to revise procedures and charts to create ‘precision like’ approaches. NDB only approaches pose problems, but operators can prepare their own charts with
advisory altitude / range data (where DME/GPS is available); crews can include similar calculations in thier briefings.
Major safety initiatives should not be seen as reinventing the wheel; there are better versions of the ‘stone age’ mentality associated with NPAs and Dive and Drive procedures.
Safety is about reducing unnecessary risk. NPAs statistically have higher risk, maybe not for everyone, but for those individuals who did not know or heed modern advice, this lack of knowledge or inappropriate application, could be fatal.