OK465, “discontinuing an approach … taking the time and space”.
The crew were balancing a max wt landing in demanding conditions, with min fuel for diversion; they judged that a circling approach involved higher risk or less chance of success (airmanship/judgement).
The absence of the knowledge of RNAV is as much an organisational issue as for the crew – who were working hard in difficult circumstances. In their mind a late change to RNAV (or even circling) may have equated to a missed approach and diversion; thus lack of knowledge was not significant at a late stage of the approach. Lack of knowledge at the time of briefing might have been similarly insignificant as the then reported conditions did not trigger a need to change runways (7kts tail). Remember that the crew’s time-line was real time, whereas ours is the last 4 years.
The chosen option – misjudged as safe, and not aided by a multitude of contributory organisational and regulatory factors, was to continue the approach and landing, although this was not well executed.
Beware of hindsight bias; instead of seeking to criticise, look for aspects that might help us avoid similar circumstances.
Don’t assume that the crew will catch the shortfalls in performance planning and requirements originating from operational procedures, and organisation and regulatory slackness. Crews have enough problems detecting their own errors let alone those much higher in the organisation.
Beware complacency, crew, operator, regulator, and particularly politicians if baulking regulatory action.