Several pages ago I wrote:
I'm still waiting for some one to come up with a persuasive list of examples of the "dead bodies and wreckage" attributable to unpublished let-downs. Most of those the examples I've seen cited are accidents that did not seem to depend on whether or not an approach was published or approved.
and so now we see this example (
interim report here) quoted:
For example, see this accident in which a Citation cancelled IFR to do a home made approach into an airport with no instrument approach.
The pilot had probably done this many times before and, for all I know, perhaps into other similar airports. For whatever reason, this time it went wrong.
When you describe it as a "home made approach" then I suppose you're correct, in the sense that all VFR approaches are to some extent "home made". The ATIS available at EDDF gave 8000 FEW004. The report for EDFE (which was not available to the crew) gave 4000 FEW008. No evidence is presented in the report that suggests that the crew flew any sort of unpublished let-down which got them into trouble. Rather, they attempted to fly night VFR and got caught out, while making an unstabilised visual approach to a runway with rather unforgiving terrain on its approach.
'At 1855:05 hrs the controller reported “…, field now eleven clock position, range six miles.“ The co-pilot answered that he had the airfield in sight after he had gotten the PIC's assurance.'
Had they instead flown a profile based on level vs distance numbers from their FMS, even at 300 ft per mile, they and their passengers would probably still be alive today.