Most referred questions Thursday to the Federal Aviation Administration, which mandates minimum visibility standards. Each airline can impose its own, more stringent requirements if it wants to, an FAA spokesman said. What that means is that if the pilot gets down to 200 feet and cannot see the runway, he cannot legally land. He would not comment on the possible impact of high wind speed on an MD-80 series plane like the craft that crashed while trying to land, and he said that those details of the accident are being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Wind speed is a fact of aircraft performance.
In visual flight rules, it's three miles visibility and you have to be at least 500 feet below the clouds. In Minneapolis, Northwest Airlines spokesman Mary Beth Schubert would not say whether her airline had imposed stricter requirements on landings in the wake of the Little Rock crash. A US Airways spokesman in Arlington, Va., also would not talk about landing standards. Inc. All rights reserved. This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.