We donīt know yet if the pilots really had been on a 'home-built' approach. Must have been a very crappy one then that had them come down more than 2 miles short of the runway. They surely were aware of the higher terrain in the approach path. I still am reluctant to assume they brought themselves into this mess deliberately.
Two main questions:
Why didnīt they climb to safety and diverted, instead of descending further into low to no visibility?
Why didnīt they contact Trier Info?
@maxred:
Thereīs nothing wrong with programming personal fixes into a Garmin and using them for whatever purpose, e.g. as turning points on cross country (in your case: inter-island) flights or as individual IAF for an uncontrolled airfield. Still, as you have stated, you have to be visual to use them, i.e.must be flying in VMC. Otherwise: stay away, divert or contact ATC, ask for IFR-pickup and fly the published procedures (or whatever ATC instructs you to do).
Last edited by 20milesout; 14th Jan 2014 at 22:44.