I can only talk about 3600 ft in turbo-normalized. The difference, as can be expected, to a “normal” take-off is non-existent. Plus I don’t want to go to these places in any other weather than blue skies. Let people think for themselves but keep them informed and make it easy to get the information – straight into their faces if necessary. “No, you cannot” is simple CYA
Exactly. You can’t go in there unless you are VMC all the way down, or have big balls and enough performance and de-ice to climb straight back up 
That’s a huge wide valley. The runway is big enough for SEPs and MEPs too, for that density altitude
Please list all recent accidents at Samedan, which of them were light aircraft, and which had anything to do with familiarity with the airport.
Answer – zero.
There were plenty of jets landing long or otherwise unstable, mostly when flying home-spun “VFR” approaches in poor weather, some of them unbelievably blatant.
Yes, most of these pilots were not familiar with the airport. But that was not even remotely the primary cause for these crashes
I despair when pilots defend idiotic rules introduced with no basis in fact.
Looks stabilised to me…
It only is a solution if it solves a problem.
I had a quick look at all accidents at Samedan since 2000 in the swiss accident database.
Other than one performance accident in an overloaded aircraft – done by a pilot who was familiar – and a depressing number of gliding accidents, again all by pilots who were familiar, most prangs were made in jets or turboprops, some in unbelievably idiotic ways. The worst landed halfway down the runway, when it was iced up, 1000lbs overweight, in a Citation 550 / Bravo. Fortunately nobody died on that one.
Flyer59 wrote:
5600 ft Elevation is a lot
With that logic, a lot of airports in the western US would be closed. Last time (couple of weeks ago) I flew into Big Bear, the DA was 9800ft (field elevation is 6700ft). I’m with Stephan Schwab on this one – CYA and keep the hoi polloi out.
I did say the airport should be closed? When? Pilots who fly into airports midtly know what they are doing, they are used to it. LZSA otoh is Europe’s highest airport.
I am not for the regulation, but i do think that this airport is not for everyone.
The restriction on Samedan use is a good example of a fundamental difference between the North American approach (Canada too, not just USA) to aviation and the European one, and that is the degree of regulatory intervention to actively “control” pilots and “fine tune” monitoring of their capabilities.
The North American philosophy is one of teaching (and biannually confirming) a minimum performance standard. This is intended to include soft areas like decision making. An example is the authorization of an IFR rated pilot to perform any authorized approach to published minimums. It is expected that the pilot will make the personal judgement of his particular proficiency with respect to a given approach on a given day under specific conditions. There is a similar expectation wrt VFR operations by a non- instrument rated pilot.
This is not generally accepted in Europe and there is a creeping tendency for airfields (and authorities) to decide that their “uniqueness” justifies placing limitations on the internationally recognized pilot certifications and rights. A corollary of this is that NA airfields are by default open to unrestricted use whereas European airfields are increasingly only open subject to restrictions or PNR or PPR. Fortunately there are still a few countries that have not (yet) caught this virus.
Yes, what you write is right – and convincing, although is not that exceptional that pilots need an extra qualification, see old HongKong of Madeira airports where Lufthansa pilots (other airlines?) had to train before they could land there as PIC.
But that is for commercial ops.
