Expert: D. Norkus - 1/2/2006

Question
Used this service before it is great!

Anyways, I am reading some sample gouges, I have an interview in a few weeks.  Once question I came across is your cleared for the ILS and you lose the GS inside the FAF what do you do?  The person said what the interviewer wanted to here was "go missed because you did not brief the localize approach", breif the localizer and then shoot the localizer.
I find this hard to believe especially with todays gas prices theyd want you to do a go around.  I know alot of stuff is going on during an approach but why wouldn't the PNF just look down and say "GS out (to ATC), our MDA is now 600 and missed is station passage or whatever it may be instead of DH is 200" and provided you have the visiblity just land the plane.  That may take 3 seconds at most.

Answer
Chris

In my opinion, the interviewer wants to hear that you would go missed regardless if you can still make it on a LOC only as that is erring on the side of safety. Even if you could make it down by reverting it to a LOC only approach, it's one of those judgement calls they look for as every airline interviews "captains in training". (Hence all those scenario questions!) The cost of fuel for a go around isn't that much compared to the cost of an incident that could result from an unstabilized approach in low IFR weather.

In addition, that carrier may have it in their ops manual that anytime the GS is lost, the crew goes missed. My airlines policy is that "a missed shall be executed anytime a "radio or approach instrument failure occurs below 1,000ft above the DA or MDA (as applicable) and visual contact has not been attained".

Perhaps a twist on this would be to ask about the weather for the approach (if you didn't know it already). If it's 1,000 ft above the DH or MDA and you can reasonably expect to break out and get a visual on the airfield you would continue to the MDA for the LOC, otherwise you'd go missed and then come back for a LOC after briefing the new approach.

Just my two cents...

Dottie