Why publish a plate for an OTS approach?

"KP" nospam@please wrote in message
. ..

It's not "apparent" the aircraft was "cleared for a deauthorized approach
by ATC" at all.

If the controller used the phraseology "CLEARED APPROACH" it was up to the
pilot to select the instrument approach.

That doesn't include an approach that was known (or should have been known
through a proper pre-flight) to be OTS.

It's apparent the controller did not use the phraseology "CLEARED APPROACH".
From the NTSB report:

"At 1145:15, the controller stated, "november seven four charlie charlie,
cleared for the s d f approach to uh somerset, maintain four thousand until
your established on the approach." The pilot replied, "ok maintain four till
established (unintelligible), thank you four charlie charlie." The
controller then repeated the approach clearance and this time specified the
SDF RWY 4 approach, and the pilot again repeated that he was to maintain
4,000 feet until established and was cleared for the SDF RWY 4 approach at
Somerset."


http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?...00FA067&rpt=fa

"KP" nospam@please writes:
wrote
I think if there is anything that is subject to criticism here it is
that the pilot was apparently cleared for a deauthorized approach by
ATC. It seems to me that they should have known of its status.

It's not "apparent" the aircraft was "cleared for a deauthorized approach by
ATC" at all.

If the controller used the phraseology "CLEARED APPROACH" it was up to the
pilot to select the instrument approach.

That doesn't include an approach that was known (or should have been known
through a proper pre-flight) to be OTS.

Doesn't the standard clearance phraseology include the approach
for which one is cleared?

"Everett M. Greene" wrote in message
...

Doesn't the standard clearance phraseology include the approach
for which one is cleared?


CLEARED APPROACH- ATC authorization for an aircraft to execute any standard
or special instrument approach procedure for that airport. Normally, an
aircraft will be cleared for a specific instrument approach procedure.

you can no doubt answer a question I have long wondered about.

What information does the controller have at his immediate disposal
that an approach is not authorized?

Are they just supposed to have an awareness, or is there some listing
at their radar stations that show NA approaches?

(I was once nipped by poor preflight planning when I was informed by
the approach controller that an approach I wanted was FDC NOTAM'd
"not authorized at night". Much scrambling. Never forgot to check
FDC NOTAMS again after that)




On Thu, 31 May 2007 17:49:03 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
wrote:


"KP" nospam@please wrote in message
...

It's not "apparent" the aircraft was "cleared for a deauthorized approach
by ATC" at all.

If the controller used the phraseology "CLEARED APPROACH" it was up to the
pilot to select the instrument approach.

That doesn't include an approach that was known (or should have been known
through a proper pre-flight) to be OTS.

It's apparent the controller did not use the phraseology "CLEARED APPROACH".
From the NTSB report:

"At 1145:15, the controller stated, "november seven four charlie charlie,
cleared for the s d f approach to uh somerset, maintain four thousand until
your established on the approach." The pilot replied, "ok maintain four till
established (unintelligible), thank you four charlie charlie." The
controller then repeated the approach clearance and this time specified the
SDF RWY 4 approach, and the pilot again repeated that he was to maintain
4,000 feet until established and was cleared for the SDF RWY 4 approach at
Somerset."


http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?...00FA067&rpt=fa

wrote in message
news

you can no doubt answer a question I have long wondered about.

What information does the controller have at his immediate disposal
that an approach is not authorized?

Are they just supposed to have an awareness, or is there some listing
at their radar stations that show NA approaches?


I don't believe there is no one-size-fits-all procedure. ARTCC air traffic
managers are charged with coordinating with other air traffic facilities in
their area to ensure that adequate procedures are established for NOTAM
distribution. That gets the NOTAM to the terminal facility, it's up to that
facility's management to ensure the controllers are aware of pertinent
NOTAMs.

On May 30, 11:31 am, wrote:
When you think about it a bit, there is no real difference between an
approach deauthorized last week and one deauthorized last year or two
years ago..

Of course if you think about it some more, you will realize you are
wrong.

First difference - an approach deauthorized last week will be under a
current NOTAM, and you will get it as part of a standard briefing.
Not so for an approach deauthorized last year.

Second difference - approaches are deauthorized fairly infrequently,
but can stay deauthorized a long time (sometimes years).

Therefore, a pilot who does a normal preflight (including a preflight
FSS briefing) will most likely know about an approach deauthorized
last week, but not one that was deauthorized last year.

If a pilot performs a PERFECT preflight preparation, including a
review of all published NOTAM's for every possible place he may need
to land, there is no problem. This is not going to happen every
flight. Even with the best of intentions, things get missed.
Controllers have procedures to prevent them from issuing OTS
approaches, but that happens too - the way it did here.

Proper safety systems are layered, like swiss cheese - every layer has
holes in it (eliminating every possible hole is impractical) but when
you overlay them the likelihood of holes lining up is very small.
Intelligent analysis of accidents includes a review of the factors
leading up to it, and a consideration of what sorts of simple, cheap,
non-intrusive changes could have made a big difference. In this case,
the simple, cheap, and non-intrusive change is to print a notice on
the plate - approach OTS as of print date. It costs next to nothing,
does not affect usability of the plate should the approach be returned
to service prior to the next publication, and could easily prevent an
accident (most probably would have in this case). I know of some
close calls that resulted because this is not done - but in those
situations, fortunately other layers in the safety system worked and
nothing bad happened. I always knew something like this would happen
eventually (we have discussed this topic on this newsgroup before) and
now it has.

Unintelligent analysis consists of blaming the PIC for not meeting
some arbitrary standard of perfect preflight preparation, and
insisting no system changes are needed because if the PIC acted
perfectly, there would have been no accident. People are not perfect,
and any safety system that relies primarily on people executing boring
tasks perfectly every time is not very intelligently designed.

We have all sorts of rules and processes in place to prevent accidents
- and most are expensive and restrict the pilot's options. This
proposed process (marking the plate) is extremely cheap and simple,
and restricts nothing. Not adopting it is just dumb. Will it be
executed perfectly every time? No. Eventually a plate for a
decomissioned approach will get published without the notice. It's a
given. But it makes this sort of accident dramatically less likely.
Given that it's a rare event anyway, that's probably all that is
necessary.

Further, this peculiarity of the approach plate publishing system is
not known to the majorty of IFR rated pilots (at least in my
experience - but hey, I'm just and ATP and CFII, what do I know), is
quite counter-intuitive, and is not covered in the standard IFR prep
materials. It would probably cost more to cover it in the IFR prep
materials than to fix it outright.

Michael

On Fri, 01 Jun 2007 15:05:10 -0700, Michael
wrote:

On May 30, 11:31 am, wrote:
When you think about it a bit, there is no real difference between an
approach deauthorized last week and one deauthorized last year or two
years ago..

Of course if you think about it some more, you will realize you are
wrong.

Actually, thge more I think about it the more I am convinced I am
right.

A proper preflight will consist of a review of (a) current charts, (b)
DUATS (or briefing) recent NOTAMS and (c) a review of the NOTAM
publication for published NOTAMS.

This will reveal ALL NOTAMS, regardless of their age, and therefore
makes no difference whether the NOTAM is 6 days or 6 years old. If
it's in effect, it is current, regardless of its age. If you want a
chart annotated for a NOTAM, why just go ahead and annotate it. Why
depend on the FAA to perform this simple task?

It's a simple three step system thayt anyone (excluding CFII's
perhaps) can understand and follow.



First difference - an approach deauthorized last week will be under a
current NOTAM, and you will get it as part of a standard briefing.
Not so for an approach deauthorized last year.

Second difference - approaches are deauthorized fairly infrequently,
but can stay deauthorized a long time (sometimes years).

Therefore, a pilot who does a normal preflight (including a preflight
FSS briefing) will most likely know about an approach deauthorized
last week, but not one that was deauthorized last year.

If a pilot performs a PERFECT preflight preparation, including a
review of all published NOTAM's for every possible place he may need
to land, there is no problem. This is not going to happen every
flight. Even with the best of intentions, things get missed.
Controllers have procedures to prevent them from issuing OTS
approaches, but that happens too - the way it did here.

Proper safety systems are layered, like swiss cheese - every layer has
holes in it (eliminating every possible hole is impractical) but when
you overlay them the likelihood of holes lining up is very small.
Intelligent analysis of accidents includes a review of the factors
leading up to it, and a consideration of what sorts of simple, cheap,
non-intrusive changes could have made a big difference. In this case,
the simple, cheap, and non-intrusive change is to print a notice on
the plate - approach OTS as of print date. It costs next to nothing,
does not affect usability of the plate should the approach be returned
to service prior to the next publication, and could easily prevent an
accident (most probably would have in this case). I know of some
close calls that resulted because this is not done - but in those
situations, fortunately other layers in the safety system worked and
nothing bad happened. I always knew something like this would happen
eventually (we have discussed this topic on this newsgroup before) and
now it has.

Unintelligent analysis consists of blaming the PIC for not meeting
some arbitrary standard of perfect preflight preparation, and
insisting no system changes are needed because if the PIC acted
perfectly, there would have been no accident. People are not perfect,
and any safety system that relies primarily on people executing boring
tasks perfectly every time is not very intelligently designed.

We have all sorts of rules and processes in place to prevent accidents
- and most are expensive and restrict the pilot's options. This
proposed process (marking the plate) is extremely cheap and simple,
and restricts nothing. Not adopting it is just dumb. Will it be
executed perfectly every time? No. Eventually a plate for a
decomissioned approach will get published without the notice. It's a
given. But it makes this sort of accident dramatically less likely.
Given that it's a rare event anyway, that's probably all that is
necessary.

Further, this peculiarity of the approach plate publishing system is
not known to the majorty of IFR rated pilots (at least in my
experience - but hey, I'm just and ATP and CFII, what do I know)
is
quite counter-intuitive, and is not covered in the standard IFR prep
materials. It would probably cost more to cover it in the IFR prep
materials than to fix it outright.

Michael

wrote:

Actually, thge more I think about it the more I am convinced I am
right.

A proper preflight will consist of a review of (a) current charts, (b)
DUATS (or briefing) recent NOTAMS and (c) a review of the NOTAM
publication for published NOTAMS.

Good, you're learning. So now you can admit you erred when you implied
all that was required was a two-minute check:

-- Here are all the kentucky NOTAMS.
--
-- Looked them up in two minutes. Free.
--
-- I'll say it again. Anyone who is not aware of a NOTAM deauthorizing
-- an approach has not performed adequate preflight.

Actually, counting the time it took to key in the URL, the published
NOTAM lookup took less than 30 seconds.

Leaves about 1.5 minutes to check DUATs, to get under the 2-minute
mark for all NOTAMS.






On Sat, 02 Jun 2007 08:58:11 -0400, Dave Butler wrote:

wrote:

Actually, thge more I think about it the more I am convinced I am
right.

A proper preflight will consist of a review of (a) current charts, (b)
DUATS (or briefing) recent NOTAMS and (c) a review of the NOTAM
publication for published NOTAMS.

Good, you're learning. So now you can admit you erred when you implied
all that was required was a two-minute check:

-- Here are all the kentucky NOTAMS.
--
-- Looked them up in two minutes. Free.
--
-- I'll say it again. Anyone who is not aware of a NOTAM deauthorizing
-- an approach has not performed adequate preflight.

On Jun 2, 5:04 am, wrote:
Actually, thge more I think about it the more I am convinced I am
right.

Of course you're convinced. Now answer me this question - do you
always know where you are going to land (or can you always narrow it
down to a short list, just a few airports) before you ever start the
engines? If you say yes, you're not getting much capability out of
the airplane.

In the real world of flying GA IFR, things don't work that way.
Headwinds and ATC delays force landings short of the intended
destination (or fuel stop). Weather systems that turn out worse than
forecasts or move differentl than forecast (thunderstorms, ice,
widespread below-mins conditions) cause diversions around weather, and
thus landings dozens (or even hundreds) of miles off the intended
course. Landing sites in such cases are chosen by consulting printed
publications in the cockpit to select appropriate facilities and
consultation with FSS (by radio) to confirm weather. Time is at a
premium because FSS frequencies in such weather tend to be tied up -
everyone is doing this. Even if the first diversion landing is fine,
planning for the next leg is done wherever you landed - not
necessarily a place with internet access. So what are you suggesting
now - what everyone who actually uses the airplane for transportation
should have a printed copy of the published NOTAM's in the cockpit to
deal with this issue?

Michael