You know that the 3º annotated on the VOR profile is a nominal figure, and that there isn't any slope guidance, right??
Yes CB I do get it but do you think that this was the first and only time that a crew has arrived at Norfolk with low cloud and no fuel to divert? The 3degree annotation is there to give pilots some idea of the gradient of the slope to the runway. Of course its not a precision approach but if you set up a RoD that equates to 3degrees and you monitor your height v DME scale then you give yourself a reasonable chance of getting to the runway. Having a radio altimeter mitigates that risk to reasonable extent as the crew should have known that the cloud base was at 200' HAA if they were in contact with the Unicom. Would it have been risky, yes, would it have been desperate, very much so. Would it have been impossible, I don't think so and if I was a regular user of NF I would have been practicing this when the weather was good. My impression of what happened during this incident was that the crew arrived at NF with no fuel to go anywhere and no idea on what to do next. As I have been consistent in stating, blasting on in and conducting approaches to a minima that is not going to get you below a known cloud base
then going around and doing the same thing again is not a plan.
Many would say (mostly those with non-commercial aviation experience), that if you weren't there on the night then you can't talk about what the crew should have done. Those with experience in GA know that when you operate into airports that have limited options when the weather turns bad, then you would have already worked out your worst case scenario and how you would deal with it.
OA and LB, good to see your bromance is alive and well. If you didn't understand the more technical aspects of what I just wrote thats ok, it was for the benefit of professional pilots.
