After doing some sight-seeing in the Grand Canyon over the holiday weekend, you find yourself in IMC and divert to Grand Canyon National Park airport, KGCN. You are cleared for the RNAV (GPS) RWY 3 approach and execute the missed approach only to realize the G1000 is not displaying the missed approach hold as depicted on your Garmin FliteCharts or approach plates.

Your navigation database is up-to-date, what’s going on?

This weekend, you’re feeling adventurous and flying the VOR RWY 24 into Teterboro and realize the missed approach altitude depiction on your GTN 750 is different than what is published. Was there a change in the navigation database? Why weren’t you notified about these changes?

To your surprise, the data was inaccurate and it’s obvious these inaccuracies could have impacted the safety of your flight. Luckily, Garmin distributes NavData Alerts which are published on a continuous basis and are made available via this Garmin website.

This site provides pilots with reliable, up-to-date information regarding the contents of any of our aviation databases. Alerts may include information such as inaccurately published holding procedures or incorrect altitude depictions. These listings should be checked prior to each flight to ensure your departure, enroute, and destination airports are not affected by any alerts.

In the event a portion of the navigation data has been intentionally excluded from a database, Garmin offers a secondary list to detail those items.

This data is generally much longer-term and is derived by how our GPS units use a database’s information, whether that information is accurate or not. A typical scenario here would be withholding vertical guidance capability from an RNAV (GPS) approach. Ultimately, the excluded data on this list is generally due to the software or system limitations of our GPS units and the data may be added at a later date through a software update.

Inaccurate database content is continually discovered by government originators, our data suppliers, GPS manufacturers, and you, the end-user. By checking all applicable alerts, you can be certain that not only is your data current but accurate. And in the event you want to challenge yourself with the VOR RWY 24 in KTEB or do some sight-seeing and swing into KGCN, ensure that you check the published alerts on Garmin’s Aviation Data Alerts website!