Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames in 07
Is this pure carelessness on both of the pilots part? Is this grounds to remove their licenses? Did SFO not do enough to warn them 28L is closed?
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A lighted "X" was placed on the runway, and the approach lights and runway lights were off. Notices to airmen were issued about the closure, and the pilots would have see the NOTAM as they briefed in their pre-flight. If it's "pure carelessness" I don't know, but SFO did what was legally required to warn them it was closed, yes.
"Just a reminder, 28L is closed so please don't plow down the airplanes on my taxiway" is not a transmission the tower should have to make to a captain with 10,000 hours.
As far is if it's "enough" to warn them, well that's the big question. I'm not a pilot, but it's probably not bad airmanship to supplement the visual approach into an unfamiliar/busy field with RNAV or the ILS or something. Considering how many close parallel ops are run at SFO, approach/tower radar should have some kind of tech to monitor that people are on the correct approach and sound alarms if they're outside of set parameters. There's already a system called
PRM (
28R at SFO) that uses high accuracy radar to monitor parallel ILS approaches in bad weather and a controller manually calls people off the approaches if they deviate too much.
Based on the tech available, there's no reason this should happen... but at the same time it seems like basic airmanship. I dunno. Not a pilot.