reducing "Crew-caused"
approach and landing
accidents 

Pilot-in-charge Monitored Approach

"Monitored Approach" (PicMA) procedures minimise the three principal contributory factors to "crew-caused" approach and landing accidents.

Premature transition from instrument to visual reference, with the aircraft often continuing below DH/MDA without adequate visual guidance.

PicMA ensures that at least one pilot has unbroken instrument information for full control of the aircraft at all times.

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Inadequate overall management of approach and go-around, resulting in excessive pilot workload and poor resource management.

PicMA ensures that both pilots are actively involved in approach preparation, and that one pilot mentally "primed" to go-around from every approach. 

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Ineffective cross-cockpit monitoring, where the pilot monitoring has not prevented the pilot flying from continuing an unsafe flight path.

PicMA reverses the normal "cockpit authority gradient", so the pilot monitoring is less inhibited in correcting errors by the Pilot Flying. 

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Most "crew-caused" approach and landing accidents involve at least one of these factors: many involve all three.

The three basic problem areas - visual transition, approach management, and monitoring effectiveness - are discussed separately but obviously contain many overlapping aspects. The links take you to discussion of the technical issues involved. They do so from a practical pilot's viewpoint, although many technical papers etc. are referred to. The background papers can also all be accessed on this site.