The missed approach
The decision, the climb, the published procedure, and what to tell ATC - flown for real on Boston’s own missed approach.
14 min read · Flying IFR: departure to landing
After this lesson you can
- List the situations that require immediately executing the missed approach.
- Explain the practical difference between a decision altitude and a minimum descent altitude at the moment of the miss.
- Fly the correct sequence of actions: power, attitude, configuration, navigation, communication.
- Read and fly a real published missed-approach procedure.
At 218 feet, N7421G reaches decision altitude on the Boston ILS Runway 4R and the runway is not there - just gray. This is not a failure of the approach; it is the approach working exactly as designed. A missed approach is one of two normal outcomes built into every instrument approach from the moment it is charted, and the version that ends in a landing is not more "correct" than the version that ends in a climb.
What makes a missed approach hard is not the maneuver itself - it is deciding to fly it at precisely the moment the airplane is slow, low, configured for landing, and the pilot has just spent several minutes wanting to see a runway. Deciding fast, at that exact moment, only ever comes from a decision made earlier, before the workload spiked.
The rest of this lesson
- 1.Triggers that do not wait for a decision
- 2.Decision altitude versus minimum descent altitude, at the moment it matters
- 3.The actions, in order
- 4.Flying the actual missed approach at Boston
- 5.Tell ATC, then decide what is next
These 5 sections, their figures, the checks along the way and the end-of-lesson quiz come with the IFR track. Paid once, yours for good.
Key terms
Try to recall each definition before turning the card.