Thats what they said too;)

the hotel looks like a runway, open water, taxiway full of aircraft looks like a runway, snowbank looks like a runway...

what doesnt AC consider a runway...besides an actual runway?

I like where AC says they want an RNP procedure into the airport, but because of the hurricane, the airport lost their paperwork....(RNP procedure for a non-GPS aircraft)

Never headed for the hotel, that is but an excuse. Look at the flightpath.


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmf...acedf23252.jpg

Why Is Air Canada brought up when this is a West Jet incident?

oh crap....sorry....been a long week!
Thanks for the correction...there was the general discussion about Canadian rules, and I blended all the mishaps from AC with WJ.

actually, WJ does have very good RNP AR capabilities.

There are similarities - excursion below correct approach height on non-precision approach and transient changes in visibility - with AC accident at Halifax in March 2015.

Even Liverpool has gantry mounted approach lights, (in the Mersey.), but I suppose that with this being a holiday resort, they would not consider that to be an important option.
.

The question it opens in my mind is why they didn't have a company special RNP AR approach when they commenced operations into St. Maarten. They have RNP AR specials at many of their Canadian airports.Indeed, the 737 from the -400 on, has been fully RNP AR capable.

Yes, they do have AR into most of their airports in Canada. BUT, AFAIK, they have not been very successful with approvals outside of Canada..in the press, they say they had one submitted, but the airport lost it...

It takes virtually nothing to get an RNP AR approved in Canada, I was rattling off a few RNP-AR procedures a week.

Well, I would not say that categorically. Depending on the box, and the MMR, but is seems many of the RNP procedures are much easier with the bus. I have had to do far many more workarounds with the Smiths box than the Honeywell box. It is getting better. There are many things the Smiths box just wont do, that Honeywell does nicely, especially AR. Note that into Lhasa and Cuzco, it was AB, not lazy B.
Same for RNAP AR CATIII autoland, and RNP-AR transition to GBAS final...no way on a lazy B..I have a few CAT III GBAS autoland in military ops...

I think we will find that this crew was incompetent .
WHO in the right mind descends below 200 feet without the runway insight on a nonprecition! Never mind 100 , 50 40,,,,,,,,,
Total lack of vertical profile awareness . Not fit for flight . End off!

Isn't a Peruvian operator into Cuzco doing those great RNP AR IAPs (and DPs) with fairly late model B737s?

Im not the type of making these statements, but I agree with you on this one

Yep. Even if they had mistaken the Hotel initially, was the VNAV not showing a thing? If you decided to bust minima, would you not just follow the VNAV which could take you to RWY? So many questions.

Yes, eventually.
In the beginning, the box simply would not accept a runway endpoint over 10,000 feet. No matter what we tried, PINS, waypoint on threshold, unless the waypoint is RWY terminator, and in the database as such, just no way. The lazy B had so many things hard and soft coded into the logic and systems with 10,000 so that pilots would not bust the check ride, it took a while to weed it out.
They did eventually fix this, but it took sometime, especially with Jepp as a competitor, so I think you know how that went.

This is why so many of the real challenging airports were AB first.
Cuzco, Lhasa, Linzhi, Queenstown, etc...

I guess this is why the FAA is so insistent on operator and airframe specific validation of the integrity and performance of an RNP AR procedure.

From a pilot's perspective Cuzco is betting on the come, so to speak, because the missed approach is arduous and problematic in the event of an engine failure. I doubt the FAA would approve those Cuzco approaches for a U.S. 121 operator because of the missed approach.

Nonetheless, "buckets" of tourists go from Lima to Cuzco everyday during the season. I suspect the pilots are very conservative about the minimums.

Really? I thought QF pioneered the RNP-AR at Queenstown with their 737's years before any Airbus was authorised to fly it.

Yes, this is true, it did begin with QF on the first iteration to 0.3RNP. I forgot about that one. The 0.1 was with ANZ and the bus.
Damn, cant believe that is about 15 years ago...