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3 Answers

Cancel IFR and forced to go missed

Asked by: 1956 views FAA Regulations, Instrument Rating

Hi. Let's say you are flying a non-precision approach into a towered airport, and you meet a clear sky well above the MDA. You know from the radios there's another guy waiting for his turn in holding behind you so you cancel your IFR flight plan and obtain a visual landing clearance from the tower. But as you continue to descend for landing, you suddenly get back into clouds and want to go missed.

In this scenario, can you go missed given that you've already cancelled your flight plan? If so, what are the appropriate procedures for that? Go missed first and then notify the tower of what happened and open a new flight plan? 

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3 Answers



  1. John D Collins on Feb 02, 2017

    You shouldn’t have put yourself in this situation in the first instance. The tower will close your IFR flightplan when you land anyway, why do it prematurely.

    But based on your scenario, you need to go missed and fess up with ATC.

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  2. M. B. Ingersoll on Feb 02, 2017

    I believe this pilot cancelled so that Tower could clear the next arrival in.

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  3. Mark Kolber on Feb 03, 2017

    To M. B. Ingersoll: So what?

    If there was any chance, any chance at all of having to re-enter the clouds, there is no good reason to put yourself in that situation. Tower or no tower.

    Think he was being a nice guy by creating a situation that was a potential danger to himself (and his passengers) and the pilot following (and her passengers)?

    I’ll add a little to John’s remark:
    But based on your scenario, you need to go missed and immediatelyfess up with ATC and hope you didn’t create a traffic conflict that can’t be remedied.”

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