Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 100; Flight Crew Total 8000; Flight Crew Type 4000
Time Pressure; Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Ground Incursion Runway; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Flight Crew Landed in Emergency Condition; General Declared Emergency
Airport; Human Factors; Weather
I took off from Goose Bay with a marginal VFR METAR expected at my destination. As I approached the southern tip of Greenland the weather was VMC. The Tower was reporting IFR conditions but they were constantly changing. I canceled IFR because they would not let me shoot the approach. As I continued closer the conditions remained VMC until less than three miles away. The rain from a passing system reduced the ceiling and visibility. I was advised by the Tower that landing was not authorized. Due to the remote location I had no option for an alternate. I proceeded to tell the Tower that I had no other option and I was going to land. Even before I went into the reduced visibility I had the runway lights in sight and because of that and my familiarity with the airport I continued with the approach and landed.
An SR22 pilot on a flight from Goose Bay Newfoundland across 600+NM of the North Atlantic Ocean to ZZZZ in the middle of the North Atlantic with no available alternates arrived at the airport to find it below minimums and ATC unwilling to approve an approach. He figuratively declared an emergency and; based on familiarity; located the airport via the runway lights and landed safely.