Hat tip to the the FlightSchoolList.com for posting this video of a landing at a severely fogged-in Kloten Airport in Zurich, Switzerland. As you can see from the video, the runway only becomes visible at touchdown. Hence, someone noted on Youtube the rules regarding the landing of passenger aircraft in such severe fog. Therefore, we are going to assume that this was a private general aviation aircraft or a cargo aircraft.
Has anyone ever flown to Zurich and encountered foggy conditions that are anywhere near this bad?
Regarding the rules, landing on an ILS CATIIIc is possible with zero visibility, which is the case here. This is an automatic landing, with the crew holding their finger on the GO-AROUND button and the radar-altimeter guiding the autopilot for the flare.
About Zurich now… I flew Geneva – Zurich as passenger a lot of time for work, almost weekly for a year. This was enough to get a "Silver" membership of Swiss's frequent flyer program. Just to say that I know this approach. I experienced similar conditions once. Bright sun above the layer, only the last seconds of the flight where in the soup.
At some point, I started to see lights and thought "oh, houses" and immediately after we landed. These were runway edge lights. This was really impressive.
The hardest part for the pilots it after landing, to find a taxiway and taxi to the gate.
Yep. Perfectly legal as long as crew and aircraft are trained and certified.