Originally Posted by Ian W
Had the ILS GS been in service this crash would not have happened. I am sure you could land asymmetric on limited panel - so why to we need two engines for and full instruments?
There has been a lot of 'grandstanding' here on the capabilities of pilots to land with no aids. Whether you like it or not aids are used by many air carriers as the normal approach. Remove or limit their availability and you have taken away a layer of cheese.
Whether you like it or not - that layer of cheese would have prevented this accident. Yes the pilot should be able to fly a VFR approach with no aids. But the airlines (that _you_ work for) do not allow for that. How many training flights without SLF have you done for VFR approaches?
The ILS being U/S was not a surprise...it was NOTAMed and it's been out of service for some time. That should have been part of the crew's briefing. Non-availability of a NAVAID isn't a layer of cheese when it's not a surprise.
If the airlines don't allow an approach without NAVAIDs, the crew shouldn't have accepted a visual.