Approach Minimums

[OR_MEI]

I fly for a 135 freight company in the Pacific NW. Not Am_r_Flight. However when departing PDX on Wed there were 7 Am_r_Flight flights holding waiting to shoot the approach to the south runway which has a Cat 1 RVR req of 1800. It was below this and most of these flights were diverting to Troutdale. One flight however changed from a Am_r_flight flight number to a N-number and shot the approach at 1400 RVR.
My question is how can this be done unless the airplane was empty and then why are they flying as a flight number anyway. It seems this completely defies the entire reason for having 135 requirements.
Also Ironic is the fact that the pilot thinking he was on company frequency transmitted his question as to whether he could legally do it on approach frequency. Which is what caught my attention and I started paying attention.
Finally I heard as I was landing is BFI that PDX was closed because an Airplane went of the runway. Anybody know anything. I think they were down less than 15 minutes. Was it this flight I heard on the Radio?

 

[bart]

If he was empty, he may very well have been completely legal to shoot the approach under Part 91. If he had been 135, he could not have even begun the approach until the REPORTED weather was above minimums. Under 91, he just has to observe the minimums are met.

It's sketchy, but empty, it is legal.

 

[Big Duke Six]

Callsigns

I'm not sure why the pilot felt he needed to switch callsigns if he was in fact empty. You can still use a company callsign as appropriate when repositioning the airplane, as far as I know. At my old company, we had separate flight numbers to use when you were either on a charter or empty, but they still started with the company name. Just the numbers were different.

It's interesting what he did. Talk about drawing attention to yourself.

 

[SDCFI]

Amflight

Hey all, I fly the Navajo for Amflight out of PDX. The reason we will sometimes switch from our Amflight callsign to the N-number is so there's no confusion that the flight is operating Pt91. It's not required for us to do that, just an option. Even our empty or repo flights use the callsign so you never know who's 91 and who's 135. I was two airplanes behind the one that went off the runway, and all I will say about that is that it was above min's at when I started the app, although it did drop to 1400RVR during the app (inside the FAF of course, just barely). Only the south runway was closed (10R), I landed on the north runway (10L) which had an RVR of +3000. Made for a long night. I was one of the first from our company to get in and I was like an hour or so late. Gotta love it when the entire Portland area is clear as a bell, and the airport's fogged in.