Posted by Aileron Drag:
JFK ATC seemed to favour an on-limits VOR approach, even with an ILS equipped runway available. They seemed to be unaware that flights coming in from Europe were being flown by very tired crews who would have appreciated as much technological help as possible. Demonstrating your hero-pilot visual approach prowess is great if you've just flown a one-hour sector, but not if you're knackered.
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But, but, but - a place like SFO should have their aids working. It's San Francisco Airport - not Hinton-in-the-Hedges.
Good points, and ideally all of the navaids would be working 100% of the time. But sometimes maintenance is needed, things break, or in this case the aids were being moved to a new location for runway *safety* reconfiguration.
I'm not so sure that flying a CAVU visual approach is anywhere on par with a hero pilot. The PAPI was online (until the crash debris damaged them). It would be interesting to compare other landings at on KSFO 28R recently from transoceanic flights. Have other crews been having difficulty with flying the visual approach to standards or relying on good CRM to save the day if mistakes were being made by the pilot flying?
Is it naive to think that a professional crew would have trouble flying to the runway on target speed and descent rate on a clear and cloudless day with light winds? Were there problems getting crew rest en route, including crew changes, and if so--was fatigue a safety issue?
And if something *had* gone wrong (bad weather suddenly, aircraft malfunction, runway closed requiring last moment diversion to alternate airport) what margin of safety would be left?