Words you DONT want to hear on approach !
 

Hmmm...... a regrettable lack of foresight but better than crashing the plane, I would venture. I do wonder, though, how much different landing a Q400 in fog could be from doing the same in a Q300. I mean, how much different could it be? Maybe some pilots out there who would know?

Probably not that much, perhaps the 'stack' is a little different but an ILS is an ILS.

More to do with regulations and unions I would suspect. If he had landed sucessfully they could have stripped him of his license.

I had a feeling.....

This has to do with Ins. approach minimums and a sign off in a log book. The Captain just chose hos words very badly....

Oh well, he did do the proper thing, if you ask me. I've heard of worse things.

(wanna read about bureaucracy at its finest? Try Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Just a sidenote, my favourite book;))

a link to a good explanation.

After 30 years, he probably would have known how to land a plane in that weather.

but British pilots are said to be the most regulated in all Europe. That he diverted (better: returned), is neither a sign of competence or incompetence, nor heroic courage to admit a deficit in skills. If he would have landed in that weather without having formal qualification for that plane to land in that kind of weather, he simply would have risked serious trouble with the officials. If he was in the middle of retrainign to qualify for a very different plane model, basically he had to undergo all the bgeinner'S exams again. and if passing exam for landing plane model X in foggy weather still had not been formally ticked of the list of to do-things, he simply is not allowed to land plane X in foggy weather, although he maybe could. Doing so nevertheless would be like driving a car without licences - just with more serious penalties.

He simply followed preset orders and regulations, that's all, imo.

I might point out that if memory serves me correctly, a CAT III approach and landing is 'hands off'. In other words, you dial it all in on the computers (3 of them to be exact) otherwise known as FMS (Flight Management System), sit back, and the plane does the rest.

I have yet to meet a pilot comfortable with doing that...

Just a touch more complicated than that.....

Cat III 'auto land' is not all its cracked up to be. One small error on the inputs, an incorrect barometer setting for example can lead to a mess.

Most pilots cut off the AP as soon as the runway is in sight if the runway is not in sight within 300 feet its time to place your fate in the hands of technology built by the lowest bidder. Not an attractive situation.

But Im sure all the passengers were veeery understanding ;)

I think I'll buy that book. The preview was very good, and I couldn't stop reading until the end. Thanks:up:

It's a great book. Even as a pilot, I found it fun to read and interesting. I recommended it! :up:

I think the fact he didn't land was something to do with PIC hours not being up there. He'd only recently upgraded to the Q400 and Flybe's guide says that you need 100 PIC on the Q400 before you can do an autoland.

Lots of info over on www.airliners.net