"Do it my way or be fired" is not what I would call the best CRM in practice. There are always other, sometimes better, ways of doing things. It pays always to listen.

411A, I'm disappointed to learn that you wish to evaluate every warning you get and decide first whether you think it's genuine and then act on it rather than follow published SOPs in the first place, get away from the possible danger, then evaluate and consult and plan a course of action between you.

But considering your opinion of FOs, perhaps it's not surprising that you want it all your own way and nobody ever else gets a look in.

In the first place, your attitude has been described as arrogant. That may have something in it. Probably wouldn't make you a nice person to fly with, if true. Secondly, your insistence that you want to filter every warning and then act as you see fit must leave your FO's very confused. If true, that would make you a very frustrating and confusing person to fly with. And finally, if you want to pause and think when descending into possible danger with warnings blaring at you, that would make you a very dangerous person to fly with.

Since I now know who you are, I am, thankfully, not likely ever to have to fly with you. It's well past time you retired. I wouldn't mind you writing yourself off when solo in your own machine, but you are in severe danger of writing lots of other people off as well.

For Fergineer,
No one has said that this happened at night and whether this was a GPWS or an EGPWS warning. Big differences!! Yes, the pilots are still the most dangerous part of the safety puzzle.

B55, neither did I, I said at the end of a long flight, mine was in daylight, the procedure was the same, go round, just said tired at the end of a long flight. Wether GPWS or EGPWS it has got people thinking which is good.

For fergineer,
Pilots making choices will always be the big danger area.

I've put my trust in them for the last 20 odd years, not had many wrong decisions. Hope that they that have flown with me say the same as well.

HugMonster,

Nowhere have I mentioned that I wished to "filter every warning and act as I see fit". There are indeed some warnings in aircraft operations that require immediate actions, unless a greater emergency exists. Engine fire warnings would be a good example.
However, when SOP's clearly do not fit the profile, other avenues should be tried, in agreement with the other crew members.
All companies that I have worked for have agreed, so I can see no difficulity with that way of thinking.
And, in those companies where I have worked, it was the company management (not me) that had some difficulities with ex-BA crew. As they (management) were paying the salaries, it is perfectably reasonable to expect that these ex-BA crews comply with their new companies' method of operations.
And further, you state that it is well past the time that I retire.
Why? Just because you do not agree with my opinions?
I am certainly entitled to mine, just as you are to yours.;)

I have to stand with 411a. I couldn't open the BBC link on page one, but I would like to make some general comments regarding this topic. Yes, SOP should be the Bible for every Crew, but as we all now, sometimes it is possible that we are caught in situations, which are not covered by SOP. What are we doing then? We use experience and common sense . If it was possible, that the SOP and technical systems can cover and cope with every situation, then Pilots are probably no longer needed?! Why? Because if everything is covered, Computer Algorithms can be used instead! A nightmare? Yes, indeed, because we all know, that we shouldn't always blindly follow the box, because technical systems DO fail. That's is why we should be always alert and monitor the flight, and use next to the rules of the SOP, EXPERIENCE, TRAINING BUT ALSO COMMON SENSE .

Like I said, I wasn't able to read the BBC link, but in general, if you are decending and you are CAVOK with a visibility of 30nm or greater and the GPWS comes on and the terrain flat as a pancake and the airport in sight, you PULL UP immediately, WITHOUT assesing the situation first? What kind of airmanship is that?

Some of you guys were talking about complecency and arrogance, but in my humble opinion to always follow blindly the box is complecent as well. One day we might be caught in a situation were the box is u/s and our brains as well, because of idling too long time the last couple of 'EFIS'-years. That wouldn't be in interest of any SOP on this world.

By the way, in this region here (Southeast Asia) there are airports (especially Indonesia) where visual approaches are conducted and on some of these approaches it's unfortunately almost impossible to fly in and land without a GPWS alert. :(

It is now pretty obvious that this topic is like the parable of the 12 blind men all describing the elephant from a different perspective. There are long haul crew here with numerous Human Factors issues in their workplace; 15hrs flights, all night, tired, never flown with the other pilots, etc., etc, and short haul crew and also regional crew with 4 hour flying, mostly in the daylight, in and out of the carpark in less than 8 hours. A long haul crew should be locked into a mandatory go-around with the discussion later of what to do with the next landing. They are in no position to be making choices at an airport they haven't seen for at least a month or even more. Regional crew are at the other end, with the same day, confirmed and called VMC approach into an airport they are always SA current on, with a GPWS warning that goes off because you just touched the corner of the warning envelope(usually due to higher speeds in the good VMC) and you both confirm VMC-terrain clearance okay. Both crew faced with the same choice, one crew can only do it safely one way, the other crew can do it another way, safely too. Everyone's choices are different for them and cannot be used by others here.

I must say that I agree with 411a on this. There are some warnings that you do not hesitate to react to and SOPs that specify what the company wants you to do in a given situation.

In the company that I fly for the SOP states that if a GPWS alert is triggered in DAY VMC and the Captain can exactly ascertain his position then a go-around is not required even when below MSA.

I believe this to be sensible and practiable. However if one does elect to miss an approach for one for whatever the reason there should be no critisim.

So if in day VMC the captain pauses to ascertain his position it is possible he will crash should he make a mistake.

If he flys an unnecessary go-around what danger is there?

M.Mouse

As a few events during the last few years have shown us a go-around is not always safe and simple!

I have no argument against pursuing the safest course of action, adhereing to SOPs and practising good airmanship.

However, that said, there are times when events arise that are not covered by SOPs or manuals and then the crew have to make a decision based on their knowledge.

I can illustrate such and occurence by an experience of mine. One night in cruise at FL350 while reading a flight manual;) my attention was rudely summoned by a GPWS; WHOOP WHOOP PULL UP & TO LOW TERRAIN!! After swallowing my heart I did nothing although my SOPs tell me that I should have applied full power and climbed like hell! ( In a A320 I ask you, you can't out climb a moth up there!!!:D )

In the same vein 'were I to get one on an ILS in DAY VMC with the runway and terrain insight I would most likely continue to land.

Let's assume for one moment that it's okay to carry on in day VMC, good vis., i.e. CAVOK.

Assume also that it is not okay to continue at night, in cloud etc.

If it is marginal (by which I mean, anywhere in between), where does the line lie? Let's face it - we've already by the assumptions above said there is a line.

If he has ground contact 50% of the time, does he need to go around? How about if he's "VMC on top" of a thin layer? How deep does the layer have to be?

In the mean time, the alarms start sounding. There's a pause while he evaluates the conditions, deciding whether or not to continue. That pause could be fatal in just the wrong situation.

Far better, in my book, to play it safe every time. Train in an instantaneous response. Don't program into a pilot's mind a delay in reacting to what could be a life-or-death, urgent situation. If it proves to be a spurious warning, then agree amongst yourselves that that's what you've got, and what you're going to do with it.

Two aphorisms that we've all said at one time or another. Firstly, nobody ever collided with the sky. And secondly, trust your instruments. If playing safe and taking a possibly unnecessary go-around is not butch enough for some people, then so be it. If going by the book insults your intelligence, then save it for working out why you got the problem in the first place.

It seems that there is an erroneous assumption that above MSA there is (in my company) an SOP to apply full power and climb in reaction to a GPWS. There is not.

One of the reasons that passing MSA is acknowledged by both pilots is to reinforce the awareness of the company SOP regarding GPWS warnings, which is different depending on whether one is above or below MSA.

I am calling it a day on this one.

I can say that my company's GPWS SOPs are intrinsically safe.

I can also say that other SOPs that have been mentioned here will be safe most of the time.

Captain Stable, I do get your point, but the fact is, that there never won't be a determined thin line. If there were one, then EVERY decision could be devided dowm into a YES/NO one. YES/NO is in Computer Algebra 1/0, which comes back to what I said before. If we had that situation, then Pilots could be replaced by computers, also taking out of the decision making process. But unfortunately (or fortunately) it is not as simple as that:

I had the opportunity to fly into some airport in Indonesia last year. I give you the following scenario, where a immediate Pull Up and go around is not the safest solution:

VMC, Visual Approach, Leaving 1500ft AGL in a 737 turining left base, over hilly terrain, the GPWS comes on, because at the extended base line are more hills. A DC 10 is overhead the airport at 2500 ft about to enter right downwind, a Skyhawk A-4 of the Indonesian Air force is cleared for take off, and a F-28 is approaching the airfield from the north, another B737 from the south. ATC is overloaded.

So in this case, we assest the situation and we found it is safer to land, then to go around and follow the GPWS, because we were VMC and our flightpath lead us around the hills.This particular airfiled requires a left turn towards the airfield on Missed Approach (towards then the other traffic, Right Turn and straight out definately not an option because of Terrain), I think that is when Knowledge, Experience, Training and Common Sense comes into play.

But coming back to what you said, we shouldn't talk about IMC or VMC over the top. Discussion here is out of the question. A GPWS should be followed then immediately when descending into unknown terrain below MSA.

I have to agree with Burger Thing here. In a textbook scenario there would be no variables, but in real life there are many. However most of these are already absorbed by the crew before the warning is presented. So a qualified assesment can be made if to go-around or not..

Burger Thing

How many airfields in the world is the situation you describe normal?

In the instance you describe should the wheels not have lowered correctly you could not have gone around then?

Why does the scenario conditions keep changing from the original agreed upon ?!
On an ILS at 1,000 feet agl, the crew call "visual". At 200 feet agl the GPWS calls "minimums, minimums". Does the crew go through a new process of decision making to get another answer or does the crew acknowledge the existing and still current decision of the "visual" call at 1,000 feet?

The mindset instilled by going around with a GPWS alert should avoid hesitation when the alert is genuine.

The hesitation to consider whether the alert is genuine or not could kill you.

'Minimums' Minimums' is not quite the same as 'Whoop!, Whoop!. Pull Up!, Pull Up!'

very good! but, the pilot's situation is the same. If its VMC, VFR called "visual" and the situation is unchanged, as in the initial scenario. Let me climb over the fence here... at 1,000 feet agl on the ILS the crew call "visual" and at 200 feet agl, with conditions unchanged and even on the visual glide slope for the runway, the GPWS warning calls "WHOOP, WHOOP, Pull UP"? What do you do then?

To my mind, most people here are simply arguing for SOPs to be changed.

If the rules say you go around, then you go around. If you disagree with this and can provide good reasons, then argue for a change to the SOPs.

But we do not have the freedom to pick and choose which we comply with and which we don't.

I can see the point of those who say "If I'm good VMC, can see for miles, got the ground, got the airfield, then why go around?". Yes, on the surface of it, having a brief think, applying "common sense" and continuing may appear to be be logical.

However, as has been said many times, the action on the part of the pilot needs to be instantaneous in many GPWS situations. There should be no "Errr - can I see enough? Am I where I think I am? Is that alti set correctly? What does his say over there?" because most of the time by then you'd be dead.

Common sense, for me, says react instantaneously, and go around. When you're safely out of the way of whatever bit of ground might have been wanting to share the same bit of physical space as you, consult with the other guy. Check your position with ATC if you want. Check the map hasn't shifted. Check your altis. "Blimey, mate, we've checked everything, so the machine must be wrong. We were exactly where I thought we were. OK, let's do it again, and if it goes off again I'll disregard and we can snag it when on the ground. OK?"

Training in a delay in a reaction to GPWS is about as dangerous as you can get.

My outfit, a well known 'High Cost Operator' ;) requires that except in clear daylight VMC, when the flight crew can unequivocally confirm that an impact will not occur, they must react immediately to a GPWS warning.

However, they do go on to point out that crews should beware of being slow to react on the basis of previous suspect performance,and that investigation of the reason for the alert or warning must take second place.

All seems reasonable and sensible to me !!

Aviation, unfortunately, has significant gray areas not covered by SOPs, in which decisions must be made based on an evaluation of the situation as it presents itself. This decision process is necessarily filtered by the pilot’s experience and training, and does not always result in the desired outcome, as statistics clearly show.

Herein lies the difference, in my opinion, between the ‘old pro’ and the neophyte pilot; the ability, acquired through experience, to operate safely and efficiently in those gray areas where SOPs are either irrelevant, questionable, or in Burger Thing’s case, clearly dangerous.

SOPs cannot address every possible permutation, and that is why the insurance companies insist that a captain is a captain, and an F/O is not. Regardless of experience levels, I would never criticize any pilot for adhering to SOP, for that in almost every case is the safest course of action.

In some scenarios, however, 411A is entirely correct in his approach to the problem. The ability to think ‘outside the box’ is an absolutely crucial component in every successful pilot’s bag of tricks.

(ref; Air Transat, Azores; UAL, Sioux City)

I used to fly for a carrier (yes - a major) where the SOP was always to obey the GPWS "unless completely sure of position and height".

I never liked that - it was mostly the guys who thought they were sure where they were who crashed. Let's face it, the warning is not one which "goes off" all the time - and when it does it can save lives.

bugg smasher is "there" with that comment.
For Captain Stable, you said, "OK, let's do it again, and if it goes off again, I'll DISREGARD..." What if that next time it actually was a correct GPWS warning? You've just broken another rule, NEVER DISREGARD a GPWS warning. Each is a separate and unique occurence. Assumptions are now coming in here. Just as Deadly.
"... and we can snag it when on the ground,OK?" That sounds just like the last words from a CVR.
A safety system based 100% on only the pilot is unsafe. So too, a safety system based 100% only on SOP's is unsafe. It gets back to who is making those safety choices that don't fit neatly into a SOP, or your experience base. A safe choice for an airline pilot may not be a safe choice for a new CPL. If you train your new pilots to only find a SOP answer, it will eventually happen where they won't be able to know how to make a safe choice when it is demanded of them. Alot of those examples in the airline accident history.

Bugg smasher is correct. Let's face it, that is the reason, why a senior Captain of a 747 is paid the big bucks. Not because knows the SOP inside out or is able to press the Auto-Approach-Button more gently than the Junior F/O, but he has a bucket full of experience.

Train in an instantaneous reaction? Honestly, I have a problem with that idea. I prefer to be trained to instantaneous assessment. This assessment can be as quick as a friction of a second and doesn't mean hestitation: Night, IMC -> GPWS warning, you pull up, of course

But I believe we can get caught in situations where it is safer, to think first, then (re)act.

Captain Stable, if you were right, then Boeing or Airbus would have probably build the aircraft in a differnt way. A GPWS alert would be followed by instantaneous Auotopilot pitch up or switching into the Go-Around mode, flying the programmed missed approach procedure. We could take then the pilot out of the decision making process. Acording to your philosophy, that would be safer. We wouldn't have then this weak link (Pilot) in the chain and the aircraft wouldn't lose precious time descending into terrain. Thank goodness, they are not built this way! At least not aircraft... ;)

In the scenario i described earlier, it would have been possible to go around, but in our opinion it was much safer to continue and land. Even when I am sitting here in my appartment and think back about that particular day and have the comfort of having time , I still believe, we did the right decision that day. And we all know, when you are up there, we don't have this comfort of having much time to decide. And in our case, following the SOP wouldn't have given us much safety comfort either...

Granted, this scenario is not 'a normal one'. But which one is? Is there such thing like 'a normal' scenario? Techman has the point. There are so many variables out there, which can't be covered or foreseen.

Uuups, one word is missing. I wanted to say, that at least the aircraft of our company, are not built this way... :o

Sorry...

BT, you raise very valid points.
I have flown for several companies in the middle/far east that had a rather large variety of nationalities as pilots, both Captains, First Officers and Flight Engineers.
In EVERY one of these companies, the over-riding principle of standard operating procedures is...to follow them as best you can, and that is indeed what the company management expects.
However, each of these companies also insisted that, in the event that the SOP's or abnormal checklists do not address the "situation at hand" then crew are to use their best judgement under the circumstances.
In the case of ex-British Airways crew that had retired and joined where I worked, most just got on with the job, the company way.
There was a small number however, who seemed to delight in "making waves", always finding fault, and declaring that, the BA way was the only way.
These particular crew members did not last very long at all. They were sent packing because...they were a pain (as in, don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up) and management simply had NO time for them.
Some of these attitudes are demonstrated here, as you have no doubt noticed, i'm sure.;)

Anyone else remember the South American 747 (I think) crew at MAD whose last words on the CVR were 'Shut up Gringo!' (in Spanish) to the GPWS insisting on 'Pull Up!'? Presumably they 'evaluated the situation and used their best judgement'.

Notso Fantastic--
Living up to your handle again, I see.
If you had been reading the various comments here, you would have realisied that the general discussion was...daylight, VMC,CAVOK, not in the clouds or nighttime.
You have clearly demonstrated the superior BA attitude that has gotten some of your retirees booted out of other carriers.
Better stick to BA, as you will indeed find the "outside world" not all that friendly.

Notso Fantastic, I think your company spent a lot of money to select you over hundreds of other guys, who also applied for that job, in order to 'evaluate situations and use your best judgement'.

If they wanted only some trained robots, they could have chosen some monkeys in order to press some buttons. The only problem would be the RT though... ;)

But that is maybe what you want, Autopilot on, brain off. Not me. :p

I just hope that when you fly VMC and decent on a STAR through the MSA with the airfield in sight (I hope you have it in sight and don't have your eyeballs glued to the instruments), terrain as flat as a football field (Am I touching a sensitive area here ? :D Samba... ) and with a false GPWS warning, that I won't be the one who flies 1000 feet above you, when you pull up instantly. I would find that notso fantastic. :eek:

Cheers.

Yes, 411A, I noticed... :(

It's funny how the cloak of anonymity seems to allow people to get so abusive and personal. Instant 'experts' who seem to know so much and yet in life 'do' so little! Regs make no allowance for pilots to take decisions on whether they 'think' it safe to continue. The whole point of technical development has been to make the system so reliable that when it goes off, you go 'off' UNLESS you are clearly above minimum safety altitude! It's a philosophy I trust, but the legions of 'shoot from the hip' experts that inhabit PPRUNE with an opinion about everything think otherwise! Keep your abuse to yourselves you fools

NsF,

I gather the above post is an example of what happens when you 'go off'.

Yes- it's a shame isn't it? You try to gently explain to some very self opinionated people how the airlines (that I know of) treat GPWS and the philosophy behind it, and they resort to personal insults and abuse under the guise of anonymity. It's the major failing of this forum that there are so many self appointed 'experts' like certain members here whose way is the only way!

It troubles me to see so many in this thread that are keen to have the discretion to disregard the GPWS. Whilst I agree that experience helps a pilot make sound judgments it certainly doesn't necessarily guarantee the best result.

If experience were adequate to ensure the correct outcome in these situations then why are the hillsides of the world littered with the remains of experienced crew and their aircraft? (Some of them even died in daytime VMC!)

I expect that if you could ask the crews of those aircraft which flew into terrain whether they thought that they knew where they were and what they were doing prior to impact, then some of them would say that they did. CVR analysis shows that on most of them at least one crew member was uneasy (often the subordinate).

Experience unquestionably helps a pilot to make good judgments, but a little humility goes a long way to helping you stay alive.

GPWS came in to help pilots that think they know what they are doing realise that they don't!

Nobody is THAT good a pilot.

A GPWS warning should not happen, unless a mistake has been made (in this case a wrong altimeter setting), or the machine has a problem eg map shift. What could possibly be safer than going around up to MSA or SSA and sorting the problem, then having a chat about it?
Most of them seem to happen to "maxed out" crews, who have lost each others mental model. For example, Cali- if only they'd retracted the speedbrakes they would have got away with it- it was that close, but they climbed away with speedbrakes deployed. Wonder why? Because they were confused. Dan Air in Tennerife, I believe, tried to enter an incorrect holding pattern at 320 kts. If only he hadn't banked they would have got away with it, but he did bank, and did he have the rest of his flight crew with him? Doubt it.
The "Pavlovian reaction" thing may sound silly, but you just may have made a real cock-up (apart from, you of course 411a), which no one has picked up. As, I say, what can be safer than going aoround?
I'm happy with my company SOPs (although, 411a that doesn't count because I'm a first-officer-robo-pilot), and am a) happy for skipper to adjust them if needs dictate (not hard GPWS warnings below MSA), and b) will talk to management if I think they're wrong ("the sheer arrogance of the young whippersnapper," says 411a)
Finally, I'm really happy I'll never have to fly with 411a, and his cargo plane full of rubber dog**** out of Hong Kong!;)

A well considered post Beta, it is with certainty that more people are alive today who reacted instantly to a GPWS warning, as opposed to those who didn’t. Perhaps this in itself is sufficient justification for current BA thinking (as I understand it) on the subject.

I believe, though, this thread has evolved beyond the mere question of GPWS, to a wider approach in solving cockpit problems in general. SOP will never address, nor can it be expected to, all of the various creeks which most pilots at one point or another in their careers have found (or will find) themselves up without the means to paddle.

SOP is without question an efficient tool to instill pilots with good operating habits, the need to standardize a crucial safety issue. In some cases, however, it has forced us to over-ride the common sense approach of evaluating the why and where of things before reacting blindly to drills. As someone wisely pointed out above, if it were all so simple, Carruthers would be in charge.

Notso fantastic, I start to believe that your chosen name suits your comments very well. I don't claim to be an expert nor I'm the most experienced pilot. Neither are you, your comments clearly show that. .I am not a cowboy, so usually i don't shoot from the hip. Yes, technical development has been great lately. But if you think they never fail and give you absolute security, then you are fool. I just hope for you and your passengers, that you never get caught in situations, when you have a technical problem or similar and can't find an answer in your SOP. And trust me, (computer) systems can fail. Unoticeable. :( I learned that yhe hard way during my Masters course in Information Technology... :o

I am not questioning safety procedures or regulations. But I strongly believe that not every situation can be forseen or covered by regulations or SOP as bugg smasher or 411A pointed out correctly already.

Slickster, read again my example given on the previous page and tell me, do you honestly think a go around would have been the safest solution? And, no, the altimeters were setting correctly, it is just that some airports out there in Indonesia don't have instrument approaches to all runways and windconditions on some runways are a bit tricky, so you better chose a visual approach. Believe it or not, but on some you have a 'real' GPWS warning and when you forget to turn into final from base, you will be very close to the mountain indeed. I have to explain that, because I also found it hard to believe the first time I landed there: Some of the airports were built by the Japanese at war time and they built the airports in a way to be hard to attack, usually built very close to mountainous area.

So, slickster or notso fantastic, what would you do, lets say after diversion on minumum fuel? Indonesia consits of many islands and the next suitable airport could be too far away. Fly an instrument approach with no GPWS warning but a tailwind exceeding your SOP- and airplane limitations or fly a visual approach with a GPWS warning and pull up everytime and run out of fuel? Decissions, decissions...

As far as I'm concerned, SOPs are our servants, not our masters.

People also seem to think that safety is an absolute - i.e. that as flight (or an SOP) is either safe or it isn't, when in fact we are operating down at the end of the bell curve of unlikely events.

Our procedures just shift things slightly towards more safety (if they are well designed and implemented), without unduly compromising expediency.

No SOP can cover every situation. GPWS is just like every other warning system - a trade of between being sensitive enough to generate warnings when you need them versus not being over sensitive to the extent of providing too many false warnings.

I've had several GPWS warnings in my career, coincidentally they have all been in VMC. Solid VMC - i.e. 30 miles vis, rather than marginal, and not once have they been necessary. Fortunately, my employers at the time had SOP that allowed you to not pull up if you were in VMC and certain of position.

The fact is that there are many airfields where GPWS alerts are a fact of life. If you know the field you can turn to your colleague and say - 'The GPWS will probably go off right...now'.

Now don't get me wrong - if in anything less than solid VMC I'd be working on the automatic assumption that we had screwed up, and pull up / go around.

My new employers have the mandatory Pull up when below MSA. So next time I'm flying down to Jersey, and its a nice summers day without a cloud in the sky, and I join right base for 27 and the GPWS goes off as we fly over the cliffs, I'll be monstering back up to 3,000'. Will that be safer? - not one jot.

CPB

....and the non-transponder light a/c below you that triggered the warning continues safely through the zone.... albeit mighty shaken up at the close-up view they've just had of a very large aircraft!

Airfields that have a GPWS problem have ALWAYS in my experience had a warning either on the plates, or in the route brief (usually, with an A/V as well) with a strategy to mitigate it. Glasgow 05, Geneva and Zurich come to mind as 3 where procedurally a GPWS is possible under certain circumstances.

Too many people have died for hesitating at the Red Light.... I'd go around from the scenario above then take the breathing space to figure out why, and fly the next approach ultra-catiously with everyone on the flight deck at 110% awareness in-case it happened again... with that heightened state of continual evaluation in place THEN if it went off again I'd probably continue through it, but by that time we'd have made certain that the terrain coupled with the aircraft envelope was a definite non-player. After all , in the scenario you describe above any warning could equally have been caused by some element of mis-handling on my part that infinged the trigger envelope some way; given the way I fly, a definite probability! :)

Remember, we are talking going-around for a HARD GPWS or EGPWS warning, and not a soft. I've had soft warnings below MSA a couple of times (usually in the Highlands and Islands on visuals), evaluated and continued. Above relevant MSA, agree for sure, there's a breathing space for evaluation. And the one pull up I've ever heard has been transatlantic on RVSM shortly after implementation, watching the other guy on TCAS as the rad-alt ramped violently. Who would go for that? Absolutely no-one.

This is actually a good debate, save the odd cup of vitriol from those who should know better, and a wee bit of stirring. There are no right answers... but people are thinking and talking it through.

Personally, I think the remit for this one has moved more to suit Tech Log, but I'll leave that to Danny to decide....

Burger Thing you are being mischievous. Nobody said that one continually goes around. After evaluation following a go around from a GPWS a second warning could probably be SAFELY considered false.

I also think you are being unfair to in your comments to Notso. He has an interesting way of expressing himself but I can assure you, having flown with him, that he is as safety conscious and competent as I am sure you are.

Many contributors are accusing others of blindly following SOPs in ALL circumstances. It is my understanding that we are talking about GPWS SOPs.