Name Your Most Challenging Instrument Approach
The final approach to Runway 28 at Cuzco, Peru, presents challenges for pilots.
The final approach to Runway 28 at Cuzco, Peru, presents challenges for pilots.

An AINSafety story published last year demonstrated that a relatively straightforward GPS approach can be fraught with danger even when pilots precisely follow the instrument approach plate. Our editors began thinking about what readers might regard as their most challenging instrument approaches. Perhaps the Runway 34 VOR DME ILS DME approach to JuJuy Airport (SASJ) in Argentina, where the minimum safe altitudes (MSA) within 25 nm vary from 9,500 feet approaching from the southeast to 19,000 feet from the northwest? The approach begins from a holding pattern followed by four course changes before localizer interception. The missed approach demands a 4-percent climb gradient to avoid terrain.