Originally Posted by
papatango269
I had this discussion with our chief pilot today. To be honest, I had never really thought about it this way. He posed the question, for checkride and training purposes, is it a bust or inappropriate to descend below DA at the point a missed approach is executed. Now we are just talking about 10 or 20 feet as the missed approach is executed, because a descent is imminent transitioning from your flight profile. Any thoughts would be great.
The references you are looking for are buried in FAA Order 8260.3B US Standard for Terminal Instrument Procedures (TERPS). This doesn't cover pilot procedures, but shows how DAs and MDAs are determined based on obstruction clearance. Way too complicated to explain here, but it does say that altitude loss is assumed at the DA.
Decision Altitude (DA) should be interpreted similar to Decision Speed (V1). DA is point at which decision is made to execute missed approach, and assumes some altitude loss as aircraft transitions from a stabilized approach to a missed approach or go-around configuration. MDA is a "minimum altitude"--no tolerance for going below.