A couple of times in my career so far I’ve gone-around from below decision altitude/height due to inadequate references, having acquired them before that.
I have to say they were difficult decisions to make, especially off a CAT I or NPA. I remember on one approach I could still see lights and things (enough to technically continue) but I was becoming more and more uncertain about exactly where I was, especially on the vertical profile. As I went around, the tower reported the RVR as 200m and decreasing (the minimum was 800m).
I think what finally made me throw it away was the lack of a definite aiming point and the question: “how am I going to land this thing if I can’t see much in front?” which had popped up in my mind. The years of doing standard IRR/LPC/OPC hadn’t helped much as they were all of the standard yes/no at (M)DA.
05 at YHZ appears to have a significant terrain upslope in the latter stages of the approach, which sets up a possible undershoot from the ‘too high’ visual illusion. Also, the rad. alt. calls won’t give a clue until too late. At least in this case the investigators have two people to talk to in order to find out what they saw and how it all went wrong. Should be an interesting report...