For more than a decade, I have been writing articles for Midwest Flyer Magazine, and now Midwest Flyer Monthly. This is not the first — nor will it be my last article — on “circling approaches.”
Two years ago, while taking my flight instructor refresher course, I was told that circling approaches are gone from the training curriculum. I rejoiced, but way to soon, as I could never find any official documentation from an FAA source to confirm that. Circling approaches are not always planned ahead of time, and pilots have a mindset that we must land at the conclusion of an instrument approach.
A recent double fatality accident in Southwest Wisconsin has directed me to once again dedicate my column to this subject. There are numerous YouTube channels that have emerged in recent years that cover aviation events and aviation accidents. One of those is the Blanco Lirio Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lk4CQE06IU, that aired only a few days after this Wisconsin accident. A comment was made about the pilot attempting to circle saying “who would even think of such a maneuver in that kind of weather.” In this incident looking at the flight profile, the aircraft was on a stabilized approach until about a half mile from the landing runway, followed by a left turn that would have put the aircraft on a right downwind for the crosswind runway. At the point the aircraft began the left turn, it would have appeared the pilot saw the runway prior to crossing its threshold. I could have understood a left turn after overflying the airport to the primary runway to enter a left downwind for the crosswind runway, if the pilot saw both runways at the last second, but may have been too high to land on the primary runway. In any case, we will never know the reasoning that led to this tragic decision.
On the return trip from the Canada Fishing Fly-Out to Miminiska Lodge (CPS5) in 2022, which is promoted in this magazine, Dave Weiman and I were faced with a circling approach at the Richland Center Airport (93C) in southwest Wisconsin. After clearing U.S. Customs in International Falls (KINL), we were aware of possible deteriorating weather back in Wisconsin for the flight home but opted to proceed as planned. The destination airport 93C is my home airport, and it only has a circling approach referred to as an “alpha approach” with no airport-based weather reporting. Upon arriving, the ceiling was ragged during the approach, and at the very instant we decided to go missed, we got a momentary glimpse of the airport through the clouds, but it was too late to land. Knowing the risk of circling and the hilly terrain and obstacles in the area, we flew the published missed and proceeded to our alternate, Dane County Regional Airport (KMSN) in Madison, Wisconsin, 43 nm southeast. Upon arriving at the alternate, the weather was just above minimums for the ILS 21, but we made it in, and got a ride back to Richland Center, in time to enjoy a fish dinner that evening.
There was a time in aviation that circling approaches had some merit, but today, there are GPS approaches to almost every usable runway. If the title of the approach contains the letter “A”, it is an Alpha or circling approach. If there is more than one circling approach to an airport, the next letter is “B,” then “C,” etc. This designation does not mean the pilot must circle to land, but that the runway and final approach course are misaligned by more than 30 degrees, or that the descent from the minimum descent altitude (MDA) to the runway is too steep, as in the “VOR A” approach to the Baraboo/Wisconsin Dells Regional Airport (KDLL). In the case of this approach, the approach course is perfectly aligned with the runway, but it would be necessary to be able to descend slightly more than 1100 feet in 1.3 NM to be able to land safely. I have done this straight-in landing on Runway 19 after going visual with the runway about a mile out in a Cessna 172 using full flaps and a 20-knot direct headwind.
When I do training for the instrument rating, there are many components to good training — one is being able to fly the aircraft on instruments without the help of an autopilot, as well as other factors like communications and navigation. It appears that several of these components were involved in this Wisconsin accident with aviation decision making being a contributing factor. In the above-mentioned situation on the return trip from Canada, the temptation was to circle, but good training indicated we could not continue to keep the airport in site during a circle to land without going below circling minimums, so why risk it.
In a recent fatal crash of a Cessna Citation in North Carolina involving a high-profile individual, the news media and the aviation media, along with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), have been making statements as to the possible cause. Early comments from NTSB showed they were out of the loop dealing with radio calls from the ill-fated aircraft that were first discovered by the aviation social media channels. Early criticism of the pilots for not following protocol for a failed engine, soon changed when indications showed that a forward baggage door may have popped open sending some of its contents through the engine and creating issues with flight performance.
With pilots and, especially instrument pilots, there are two areas of training, which I feel are important yet overlooked by many instructors. These are Aeronautical Decision Making (ADM) and Human Factors (HF). These areas of training were brought to light in the motion picture “Sully,” which have now become known factors.
We can train for them safely in a flight simulator, and we do. EAA and the FAA safety programs in Wisconsin under the direction of Jurg Grossenbacher from the Milwaukee FSDO, put together a program for pilots at the EAA training center in Oshkosh entitled “The Startle Factor.” I was invited to participate in that program and found it very worthwhile. I have had to declare an emergency seven times in my flying career, and each one had a different twist and needed to be handled in different ways. Looking back, we learned from all of them.
Fly safe and continue to train!!!
