Dash 8-400
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Workload; Situational Awareness; Distraction; Fatigue
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence; Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
General None Reported / Taken
Weather; Human Factors; Company Policy
After a long day for my FO (well beyond his FDP limit; and only after arguing with scheduling to notify him of that FDP extension) we were flying into ZZZ. It is a very short flight normally. When we checked in with the controller for the approach; we were told that the winds were a straight tailwind at 14 knots; gusting to 20 knots. When I input the landing data for a 20 knot tailwind; the return stated that we were overweight for that runway. The other runway is not permitted by our operation at night. However; if the wind died down (as it was forecast to) to a steady state of 15 knots or less we would be under the max landing weight for that approach. We continued the approach; understanding that we would go missed prior to the MAP if the winds did not die down. During the descent we picked up ice. When I ran the performance numbers with residual airframe ice; we were over landing weight for that runway. By this time we were on the approach; and cleared for it--about 20 miles from the runway. Seeing that we were overweight if the ice remained (the weather was VMC at the field; and a few degrees above freezing) we decided to continue the approach--again understanding that we would go missed at the MAP if the ice was still present. Just after intercepting the LOC the tower informed us that the wind has calmed down to a steady 11 knot tailwind; with no gusts. We informed them that we would continue; but with the understanding that we might have to go missed due to airframe ice. I also ACARSed dispatch to tell them that if we went missed; that we would likely head to ZZZ1. Also; in our minds ZZZ1 would have some ability to accommodate passengers; as we both knew my FO would not have been able to depart if we diverted at all. Less than a mile prior to the MAP we observed the last ice to melt off the airplane; so we continued the landing and landed without incident. After we landed my FO realized that some control buttons were still off; at which point we realized that in all of the challenge of finding a legal landing solution and considering the missed approach options that we had failed to perform an approach checklist. I should have noted that the pumps were not on as I did the landing checklist; as that would have clued me in to the fact that we had not accomplished the approach checklist.
Dash-8-400 Captain reported being task-saturated by weather and legalities resulting in forgetting to accomplish the Approach Checklist. The flight landed uneventfully.