Fair enough the jocks get a bit of a rap for this (inc messing with FMS at night turning final), but, taking up Bula's post, that STAR is bloody ridiculous; 425ft/nm, 990ft/min THE WHOLE WAY at 140TAS from 2170ft AGL with 5.1 track miles, at night, with no FGS guidance. If someone told you to stay at 2170 until 5.1nm on a gin-clear day on a visual straight-in, you'd tell him to F off. But that is what this STAR does at night with a 90° turn on to 1.5nm final! That crew, and especially the effo, were set up, big time.
A similar but more forgiving STAR at YPPH was canned by all the jet operators into Perth including QF after being classed as too dangerous. Do-able by local aces (I quite enjoyed the challenge) but for general use, it was a setup for a cockup.
It is IMO unreasonable to expect an unexperienced FO (and line captain, for that matter) to work out how to do that last bit with no forewarning. The potential to stuff it up is huge, and any operator has an obligation to warn crews about such a trap, not leave it up to the crews to figure it out themselves. Suck eggs, you say? I fully concur, but in this case, the pilot workforce should have been warned in the route manual. Like it or not, our masters are driving us in a particular direction (the magenta road!
) and it is their responsibility to also tell us about the traps that lay in wait that cannot be handled by the automatics. No problems, not doubt for Teresa et al, but then they didn't have FOQA.
Ban that STAR!
Another worrying aspect is that the ATSB didn't pick up on the difficulty of the approach, or if they did, didn't deem it important enough to comment?
Oh and Leadsled, you've been told before your assertions on AFM procedures are wrong. Why do continue to peddle them? The JQ GA checklist thing has been done to death; would you like us to keep dredging up incidents from your era?