Paul Tomblin wrote:
In a previous article, Dave Butler said:
wrote:
They are out of the online version of the Notices to Airmaen
Publication (faa.gov/ntap)
Are you saying that your two minute lookup is adequate, then? Do the
NOTAMs you found include the NOTAM deauthorizing the SDF approach at
KSME that the original poster referred to? What's your point?

The SDF was listed as OTS for four years before the accident (in 2000),
then for another year or so after the accident, and then it was
decomissioned and replaced by another approach.

OK, so there's probably no place to find that NOTAM today, and the NOTAM
is no longer in effect.

The problem is that it's very hard to look up NOTAMs while in the air,

It' even hard to look up NOTAMs while on the ground. Disregarding the
problem of sorting out the important ones from the unlighted tower
chaff, NOTAMs older than the current edition of the A/FD are transferred
to the A/FD and no longer published as NOTAMs.

like when conditions force you to divert to an airport you hadn't planned
on. Or you might not remember which approaches are OTS while you're
bumping along in the dark. In my view, it would be a really great
improvement in safety if they either stopped publishing the plates while
the navaids were OTS, or overprinted them with "OTS DO NOT USE" or
something. (It would also be an improvement in safety if controllers
didn't clear you for OTS approaches, but they're human too and might miss
once in a while - the whole point of IFR flying is checks and cross
checks.)

Agreed.