1995-02 · NASA ASRS report 297041
C421 MADE VOR APCH BELOW APCH MINIMA THEN CIRCLED TO LAND AND MADE MISSED APCH.
A TWIN CESSNA ON THE VOR 6 APCH; IN SOLID IFR CONDITIONS; RPTED OVERSHOOTING THE APCH. THE ACFT WAS CLRED TO LAND; BUT WAS NOT INSIGHT. THE ACFT (C421) WAS SPOTTED MID RWY AT LOWER LEVEL; APPROX 75 FT. THE PLT THEN INFORMED THE LCL CTLR THAT HE WOULD BE MAKING A L TURN AND CIRCLE BACK TO LAND. THE LCL CTLR INFORMED THE PLT THAT THERE ARE HILLS IN THAT DIRECTION; AND SUGGESTED THE PLT TURN R. THE PLT CLAIMED TO HAVE THE RWY INSIGHT AND MADE A L TURN INTO THE CLOUDS; OUT OF SIGHT OF THE TWR. THE PLT BEGAN FLYING AT BELOW 150 FT AGL AROUND THE ARPT FOR ABOUT 1 MIN AND FINALLY DECIDED TO EXECUTE A MISSED APCH. CIRCLING MINIMUMS AT NAPA ARE 600 FT AND LNDG MINIMUMS FOR A STRAIGHT IN RWY 6 ARE 420 FT. THE PLT DISPLAYED INCREDIBLY BAD JUDGEMENT FLYING LOW LEVEL OVER THE TERMINAL BUILDING; A RESTAURANT; CHP BUILDING AND SEVERAL HANGARS. THE TWR RECEIVED SEVERAL COMPLAINTS FROM THE CHP; AND OTHERS ON THE FIELD AT THE TIME OF THIS OCCURRENCE. THE WX AT THIS TIME WAS INDEFINITE 200 FT SKY OBSCURED 3/4 MI VISIBILITY. THIS SIT COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED IF THE PLT WAS MORE FAMILIAR WITH THE APCH; ESPECIALLY THE LNDG MINIMUMS. THE CTLR ALSO COULD HAVE HELPED BY TELLING THE PLT TO EXECUTE THE MISSED APCH WHEN INFORMED THAT THE PLT OVERSHOT THE APCH.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
Loading the flight search…
Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.
We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.
Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.
Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.