Jammed Stab
If I see to criticise it is the sloppy ATSB report. I suspect that you are assuming I'm seeking to blame ATC, which is not my intention.
My page 13 is a page of text headed "Safety Action". My page 14 is blank. My page 15 has a copy of the VOR approach plate. By comparison, the 2007 report AO-2007-055 has a lovely diagram on p5. However the recent report AO-2011-086 has no similar diagram.
My understanding of cleared visual approach was imperfect and corected by previous posters. However, it has also been added that Australia and ICAO differ in the requirement to be within the circling area. So, an interesting discussion (which is absent from the ATSB report) is whether this might be a contributing factor.
You'll have to explain the MDA point to me. The approach plate on p15 has a shaded area at the 6.5 DME point that says MDA. The MDA for the VOR procedure is shown in the table as 760 ft. What did I get wrong?
Once again, the pdf report AO-2011-086 that I downloaded from the ATSB website has no diagram on p17. It has "Appendix B - Sequence of Events".
Do you have the same report copy as me?
One of the things I'm interested in is that on p2 the ATSB list the crews response to the initial command of "climb, go around"as "climbing". On p17 (appendix B) the table lists to crews response as "copied". Which is it? Why is the transcript quoted by the ATSB as different in two places of the same report?