Originally Posted by rickair7777

Executive summary....

Snow accumlated around the LOC antenna, casusing the LOC beam to be off center by 200'

Several crew (including the accident FO on a previous flight) experienced this in the preceeding five days but did not report it.

The arrival prior to the accident reported it, but FAA policy was that action would only be taken (such as placing the LOC OOS) if two or more aircraft reported problems (in case the first aircraft had bad avionics). Policy did say to switch to standby equipment, but there was no local tower to do that.

Crew kept descending below minimums with runway environment not identified, until impact.

FAA did change policy require snow clearance around LOC antennas (previously only required around GS antennas).