Lesson from my latest flight: If the approach chart says circle-to-land is not authorized west of the airport, that doesn’t necessarily imply circling is trivial east of the airport.
The destination for the flight was Mosjøen ENMS. The town sits at the southern tip of Vefsnfjord where the Vefsna river flows into the fjord. The airport is located a few kilometres south on the opposite bank of the river. I definitely wanted to make a stop here because of the picturesque location of the airport as well as the challenge that it would present.
The runway orientation is 15 / 33. There are no approaches to runway 15; landing on this runway requires a circle-to-land. There are several approaches to runway 33 – a localizer, RNP, and GLS approach – and they are all non-standard in various ways. Due to terrain, they are offset from the runway centreline by between 4 and 9 degrees, and they are steeper than normal, with descent angles between 3.5 and 4.5 degrees.
Finally, there is a circling-only VOR A approach. It approaches the airport from the northeast, with the missed approach point at the Vardefjell VOR northeast of the airport and a high MDA almost 3000 feet above airport elevation. Here is an example of a Widerøe Dash 8 doing a circle-to-land to runway 15 from this approach.
On the day, there was a light northerly wind, so I planned for a landing on runway 33. As I was approaching from the northeast and the ceilings were high enough, I decided I would fly the VOR A approach followed by a circle-to-land to runway 33, which would require fewer track miles than setting up for one of the runway 33 approaches. Since the approach chart clearly states “circle-to-land not authorized west of airport”, I planned to join a right downwind for runway 33 and land from there.
Route
ENEV/17 GEPT1E GEPTU M609 BDO DCT MS400 ENMS/33
Winds in Harstad/Narvik ENEV were light, so departed on runway 17 around 21:45 pm local. I love the soft light on these late evening summer flights in northern Norway.
Taxiing out
In the climbout
There were initially some larger gaps in the cloud cover, but this soon turned into a solid undercast, and for most of the one-hour flight I wasn’t able to see the ground. Unfortunately, no views of Bodø as I crossed overhead.
Heading south
Gaps in clouds on the descent
As I approached Mosjøen, some gaps in the cloud layer began opening up again, and I knew there wasn’t any risk I would have to go missed from the approach. I made sure to get fully configured before starting the approach so that I wouldn’t have to make any configuration changes during the circling.
Approaching the MAP, Mosjøen town ahead
I became visual at around 3,500 and continued the approach over the town of Mosjøen – a beautiful view. Approaching the river, I turned left for a right downwind to runway 15. At this point I realized that, while the terrain to the west of the airport is definitely higher, there is a significant ridgeline east of the river, quite close to the airport. I had leveled off 1000 feet above the airport, and this put me essentially level with the ridge. What’s more, slightly south of the airport this ridge makes a curve that intersected my flight path.
Beginning the circle-to-land
With my options narrowing, I chose to make a relatively close-in base turn. I overshot slightly and ended up pretty high on final. The Duke will come down quickly if you bring the power back, and I made the approach work – but it wasn’t pretty. I floated a bit too, but got stopped easily on the 829 metres available beyond the displaced threshold.
Turning downwind
Guess I’ll have to turn base now
After shutting down and securing the airplane, I sat down for an extensive debrief. I was dissatisfied with my performance. I’d thought I had a good plan, but I hadn’t looked at the terrain around the airport closely enough. When that became obvious, I continued with my bad plan instead of discontinuing the approach and regrouping.
On the ground in one piece
What could and should I have done differently?
Starting at the end, when I found myself hemmed in between the ridgeline and the airport, I should have pushed the power in, climbed away, and repositioned visually for another attempt. The ceilings were comfortably high enough that this would have been easy to do without any risk of going back in the clouds.
If I had visualized better where my flight path would take me, I could have realized that flying my downwind above or slightly to the east of the ridgeline, and at a higher altitude, would give me more space. I could then have flown a longer downwind, giving me more time to get stabilized and lose the additional altitude.
But really, it was my planning that was deficient. I had many options that would have been better.
From the VOR A approach, I could have made a landing onto runway 15, which requires far less manoeuvering. The winds from the north were light – about 5 knots – so stopping distance would not have been a factor.
In any case, it’s not a great idea to attempt a circling approach of any kind to an unfamiliar airport that is as terrain-challenged as Mosjøen is. Particularly not if there are good alternatives – and there were in this case. I could simply have flown one of the approaches to runway 33 and dispensed with the need for a circling approach altogether – and all it would have cost me is a few minutes of flying time.
I’ll probably stay here for a bit to try some or all of these options. I’ve done it wrong. Now I want to learn how to do it right.
