Good day for GPWS
 

This goes back to the pre-TEM days of swiss cheese layers.

They punched thru 3 layers of cheese and they just missed the hole in the 4th layer. Good thing the GPWS was there as a 4th layer.

The 5th unintended cheese layer of 7800 feet may have saved them by a few hundred feet, but maybe not at at 6 degrees celsius?

Big fat Awe-Crap on ATC for a LET THE LAWYERS SORT IT OUT clearance. I'm not a controller, so I will defer judgement.

Aw-crap on the crew for taking the ambiguous ATC clearance bait.

Big fat Atta-boy to the crew for following the GPWS. Many FOQUA events reflect crews disregarding GPWS or being dangerously slow to react.

No, but IIRC it's a 1 or 3 day MEL.

Not that I have a dog in this particular fight, but I am seeing a trend with ATC here. I have been getting cleared for approaches into nontowered airports where they “allow” me to descend below a published segment. I say allow because those clearances are extremely misleading. A simple, cleared at or above “fix minimums” cleared “approach “ would suffice. Not clear us for anything lower than the segment altitude.

Just my .02

In US domestic ops, RJ drivers get used to quickly dancing to arbitrary and constantly changing ATC instructions in large terminal areas. If you fail to respond instantly, you'll likely create a conflict.

This leads to the mindset of comply now, think about it later. In this case the crew should have at least double checked what they were doing after they initiated the descent.

But these guys have been trained by the system to react quickly... foreign aircraft are handled with kid gloves, and the locals are assumed to be familiar with the area, experienced, with a good command of english so they get used and abused when ATC needs buffers and adjustments.

They are also very accustomed to getting vectored in below published altitudes... even on complex non-precision approaches in the mountains. Most of them are probably not aware that a "cross at or above" clearance could legally be issued with an altitude below safe altitudes on the approach. Most would tell you (based on common practice) that you can immediately descend to the at or above altitude.

What the controller did may or may not have been legal, but it sure wasn't consistent with what his buddies do in practice

SKW CRJ has near CFIT:
 

https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/skywest/110739-good-day-gpws.html

/close

GPWS saves the day
 

A Skywest CRJ9 was cleared to "at or above 7800'" on an approach that specified an altitude of 10000'. Down they went to 7800, but the GPWS prevented collision with the mountains.

Any thoughts on the appropriateness of the ATC clearance?

Details:

http://www.avherald.com/h?article=4b3d8f81&opt=0