Aeronautics: How to Come in Blind

Except in dire emergencies the pilots of U.S. commercial jets are far too cautious to try blind landings with zero-zero visibility. When weather conditions at their target runways are worse than 200-½ (200ft. ceiling, half-mile visibility), they are diverted to the nearest usable airport, which may be hundreds of miles away. The system is remarkably safe; during 1963 no fatal accident to a scheduled airline was caused by bad landing visibility. But passengers who were taken to Montreal instead of New York were seldom grateful, and airlines suffered financially. The Federal Aviation...

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