Originally Posted by
fisherpilot
Its in a bowl. One way in and one way out, land 15 takeoff 33 due to terrain. The trouble with aspen is that the weather can change pretty quick. We go to Eagle for that reason. Was in EGE that following weekend
I just saw there is an entire thread on this incident under Safety. Here's a post I copied that gives more detail:
Having been in there many times, I have seen some airplanes circle into 33, including a G5. However, I can tell you that you better be very familiar with every undulation of the terrain around there, and even then, the weather needs to be very VFR. The reason it's a circling approach is because of the descent rate required (greater than 400 ft/nm to from the FAF to the pavement). That doesn't preclude you from landing straight in, it's just the TERPS criteria. At my previous operator, we couldn't continue the approach past the FAF unless we had the field in sight due to the lack of performance in case of a missed approach.
Also, in order to depart on 15, you are supposed to sign a waiver and have it on file with the tower.