* Steven P. McNicoll :
Can you remember what airport and approach that was? Would like to look
at the approach plate...

VOR/DME RWY 12 at Dulles International, you can see it at
alt.binaries.pictures.aviation, the subject is "Dulles VOR/DME RWY 12".

Thank you, got it.

So their approach clearance would have meant to fly to the IAF at level,
then "somehow" descend there, and then follow the approach?

Not to the IAF, until on a published segment of the approach.

Timothy Witt wrote: "they had been cleared direct to the IAF", e.g.
"turn X heading Y direct ROUND HILL, cleared VOR/DME 12".

They were already on the Armel 300 radial, they would have been on a
published segment of the approach when they reached ROUND HILL, 11.6
miles from the IAF.

If I'm not totally mistaken, ROUND HILL is 11.6 DME from the FAF (which
is in turn 6 DME from AML), not the IAF. I guess ROUND HILL is the
actual IAF?!

Or was ATC's behaviour just wrong and they should have asked for
clarification?

There was no ATC error, and asking for clarification certainly wouldn't
have hurt them. The CVR indicated uncertainty of the proper altitude,
the captain said the approach plate indicated the minimum altitude until
ROUND HILL was 3400, but decided that clearance for the approach was
clearance to the initial approach altitude.

Hm. My reading of the old approach plate would be to stay at or above
3300 (which MSA radius was used back then?) until ROUND HILL, then
descend to 1800, and at 6 DME AML (FAF) start descending to MDA.

Where did this captain get the idea to descend below the MEA of 1800ft
before the FAF? You said "but decided that clearance for the approach
was clearance to the initial approach altitude" - which would be 1800ft.
Did they overshoot this descend (you mentioned 1670ft), or did he
actually thought he could descend to MDA?


Best regards,
Daniel