BOAC:
- of course, but as a firm believer and practiser of 'Captain's responsibilities' I still say that P cannot be 'blamed' in any way for the crash. Blame them for lack of foresight, intelligence, common-sense, management ability, attention to practical safety issues, governmental oversight - yes.
I doubt we can reconcile our differing view on the authorities responsibilies at their air carrier airports.
If a facility is not there to be used, you make the best of what you have. EG You cannot 'blame' an airport with a CATI ILS if someone crashes trying to fly to CATIII limits.
Bad analogy. The ill-fated captain wasn't attempting an unauthorized procedure.
Incidentally - I'm sure there is a restriction in Islamabad on circuit direction is there not? I seem to recall it was only on R30 (!?) but restricted circuits to the north? Now who on earth thought no-one would do circuits on R12?
See my recent post on that one.
As for being CP of TWA - suppose YOU had been, and one of your high-time crew filed an ASR for a g/a in hilly terrain in marginal weather at around DME9 on a visual circle - "don't worry - the airport should have put in an ILS"?
They wouldn't have been required to file any report because they didn't do anything wrong nor did they request priority handling.
After AAL crashed a 707 at KCVG in, I believe 1964, we soon thereafter stopped doing CTLs in weather of less than 1,000 and 3. The only airport on our system in the U.S. at which that was an issue was KMKC. The FAA designed a marginal VOR approach to help us avoid the high-risk CTL we had been doing at that airport. New ILS IAPs sprung up "everywhere" after the AAL KCVG crash. But, MKC had bad terrain to the south, so a good IAP for landing north was not possible in pre-TERPs days. (2 or 3 years later TWA moved out of KMKC to KMCI, but not before a 707-300 left his main landing gear on Runway 18's levee on a nice clear day.)