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Old 04-18-2015 | 10:44 AM
  #25  
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USMCFLYR
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From: FAA 'Flight Check'
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Originally Posted by kronan
Umm, PF had a severe undetected color deficiency. On a VFR night, flight descended well below the 4 red PAPI angle and impacted the terrain significantly short of the rwy threshold.

Since an ILS wasn't available, not quite sure I agree.
And the other pilot without a color deficiency didn't say anything about the below glidepath situation either even if he had seen all red. It is my OPINION that the crew made a mistake during the approach that led to the mishap, but blaming the whole thing on his color deficiency is a red herring in my opinion. How many other times had he flown that approach? I don't know if he had or not. Had he flown similar approaches? Had he ever in his flying career had a problem with PAPIs - or any other light/color based visual aids?

As part of my job I fly and commission new VGSIs.
Part of that profile includes what is called a 'Clearance Below Path'
We fly all red and ensure that we don't hit anything - ensuring that if the pilot sees AT LEAST ONE white light on a PAPI-4 such as the system at KTLH he will clear all terrain. I bring this up because we fly this much lower than standard glidepath angle starting out at the range of whatever system we are testing - in this case 4 miles.

I bring this up because it is hard for me to imagine a 'professional' flight crew, without any other problems or issues, flying as low as I do as far out from the runway as I do without the air standing on ends.

It is OK if you think that this mishap was greatly affected by the PF's color deficiency and I won't try to convince you otherwise; but I will tell you why I don't believe it. In the end it is just my opinion.
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