Practical IFR: Departure Alternates
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A departure alternate is an airport and approach you’ll fly if trouble finds you seconds after you enter the clouds.
Maybe it’s just that I don’t like to think on the fly, but I’m a huge fan of pre-loaded decisions. One of these is the departure alternate for IFR.
A departure alternate is an airport and approach you’ll fly if trouble finds you seconds after you enter the clouds. These are required for many commercial operations if the conditions make an IFR return to the departure airport unlikely or impossible. They’re not required for GA, but you should consider making them part of your standard IFR planning whenever ceilings preclude a VFR return.
Returning to your departure field isn’t always the fastest option, even if an approach to that airport is an option. Once you’re in the clouds, you’ll need an instrument approach or vectors below the clouds to land. Returning to your departure might require overflying before a second-course reversal to start heading back down. That’s a long time with a problem aircraft. Because airports are often aligned on similar headings in a given area, it may be fastest to continue flying straight ahead and join the final approach course for an airport ahead of you rather than do an about-face.
If it’s a toss-up, consider which airport has the better maintenance services, fire, and rescue, or simplest, surest instrument approach. That’s your departure alternate. If the best choice is an instrument return, great. You just left there so you’ll have most of the frequencies ready to go.
No matter what, it’s best to have that airport selected and the approach you’ll want, ready and briefed. Load the navaid frequencies and the approach directly into your navigator if you can. You’re flying a departure, so the approach part of your flight plan is probably free. You can delete it at your leisure when you’re enroute with everything humming nicely. If nothing else, you can probably set up an ILS frequency into your navigator when you’re using GPS for navigation on departure.
It’s important to know what constitutes a VFR return for your area. Just because the airport is reporting ceilings of 1200 AGL doesn’t mean ATC can let you back down to 1200 if you have an issue. You might still need an instrument approach.
So consider the minimum vectoring altitude (MVA) for your area. If you don’t know it, ask the tower or an Approach controller before you depart. If ceilings are above MVA, you can get vectored down below the clouds from wherever you are when Murphy strikes and then get lined up for a visual landing at the airport. If not, expect an instrument approach and make a departure alternate plan.
Zero-Zero Departure
Take this thinking to its extreme and you’ve got the proverbial zero-zero departure. True “zero vis” is probably taking things too far because you can’t even see the runway well enough for a takeoff roll. But let’s consider going IMC immediately on rotation: insane or reasonable?
Transitioning to instruments prior to entering the clouds is a healthy habit, so for a near zero-zero takeoff, that means looking down at the AI while still on the ground and then pitching for a climb. The action isn’t that different from a normal takeoff with an airport near minimums, and once you’re 200 feet above the ground, it’s essentially the same as a go-around from minimums—except you’re already configured for the climb with a plan as to where you’re going. We don’t usually consider the go-around from minimums insanely risky, so why the below-minimums departure?
I think it’s more perceived risk than actual risk. My stand is that so long as you have a departure plan covering the fact that you can’t come back, this kind of departure is no more—or less—risky than any flight profile in low IFR.
Quick Poll
For 19 years, Jeff ran many noteworthy aviation media projects with his own firm, Van West Communications, including magazines, books, videos and live seminars. Jeff previously served as editor-in-chief of IFR Magazine and co-editor of Aviation Consumer, and his work appears in AOPA Pilot, Flight Training Magazine, Plane and Pilot, and AVweb. He’s an experienced CFII/MEI with ratings for single- and multi-engine airplanes, seaplanes, and gliders. Jeff was the creator of the first pilot transition program for new Cirrus aircraft.
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- Practical IFR: Understanding the Transitions - January 20, 2026
- Practical IFR: Departure Alternates - December 16, 2025
My primary concern with LIFR departures is lack of proficiency. Most of us rarely depart with really low ceilings and/or visibilities less than 0.5 sm. We’re not ready for the somatogravic illusions associated with takeoff in low LIFR, especially with a turn at low altitude on a DP, accelerating into a stable climb, cleaning up the airplane, etc. It’s not just a question of basic instrument skills. And everything is more complicated if you depart in the dark in LIFR. We should seriously consider our recency of experience with such operations, not just our general IFR/avionics/aircraft proficiency. After all, airline and bizjet crews get to practice such procedures regularly in simulators.
We’re really discussing 0-0 departures in a flight training resource?? Just because you can doesn’t mean you should…what GA mission is so important to justify a 0-0 departure? Joke in milair is a special ticket for 0-0 is only issued to those smart enough not to use it.
My belief is that Part 91 0-0 is there as an admin solution permitting GA to depart airfields that do not have weather reporting, e.g. field is CAVU but nearest reporting shows much lower.
Below mins go around is because every flight end must end with ground contact (safe or otherwise), a below mins approach implies poor planning or inflight decision making or local knowledge that conditions are better than reported (e.g. partial fog bank over AWOS sensor area you overflew and you can see runway environment). Not every trip to the hangar requires a flight departure.
Takeoff is an immediate shake out of how the acft is doing today, a go around after some amount of flt time provides more confidence of a healthy baseline.
If 0-0 is not authorized for most operators in multi-piloted comprehensively proficient/current ATPs in turbine, maint program maintained, with thoroughly engineered cockpits, redundancy, etc, etc, take the hint.
…if you still insist, remember your pax put their trust in you, don’t make them pay for your bad decision with their lives.
Agreed. I’d add that departure seems, to me at least, to be where bad things happen to a lot of people, so why layer on the additional risk?
Let’s be clear: The main article is just about having a departure alternate. That might be required any time the approach back into the airport is uncertain or impossible. For some airports, that could be true even if the airport is technically VFR.
I say the zero-zero is taking this to its logical extreme. I’m not recommending it. However, I am saying the risk is not so much that you can’t come back—because there are plenty of times when you can’t, or shouldn’t, turn around to come back. I’m saying it’s the basically the same risk as any low departure. Or even a night departure with no references after rotation. The risk is much more about lack of proficiency and a plan if there’s a problem than the actual difference between 300 overcast and indefinite ceiling 100.
For the target audience of low time bugsmasher drivers, any low wx departure is not justified by GA mission set. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should…for a planeload of ATPs all aware of the risk, their choice, for a load of family/friends with no idea how dangerous the lack of good options is, this is where hangar discussions assisted by thought leaders in the community need to stand up and remind PICs of their responsibility instead of being “enablers” of poor ADM.