Heh I heard an Air Transat flight from Franfurt to Montreal was diverted to Ottawa and sat on the Tarmac for 5 hours. Apparently it was so hot and terrible that people were calling 911.
The incident pilots advanced the thrust levers when the airplane was about 85 feet above ground level. Flight data recorder data indicate the airplane was over the taxiway at this time. About 2.5 seconds after advancing the thrust levers, the minimum altitude recorded on the FDR was 59 feet above ground level.
Holy hell...
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So 28L is closed, there is a system in place to notify them of this, but for whatever reason they don't pay attention to this. They assume 28R is 28L and therefore conclude the taxiway is 28R.
Is that about correct?
I'm actually without words. 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?
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?
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.
Last edited by Acey; 08-03-2017 at 12:13 PM.
Reason: link
At what point would they be able to visually see the planes on their intended landing runway? They were all the way up the taxiway. With lights and everything. Maybe I don't appreciate the view from the cockpit. Can they see? They must be able to.
At what point would they be able to visually see the planes on their intended landing runway?
Even in the grainy picture you can see the lights all the way across the bay to Oakland, shows how clear it was.
They identified airplanes on what they thought was the runway and called out to tower about it... who said the runway is clear and there are planes on the taxiway. They knew something "didn't look right" but continued. Can't remember how far back they were when they saw them, over a mile I think. Might not have even had to do any paperwork had they bailed on the approach at that point.
Reading the preliminary report it appears the Philippine Airlines crew (#2 behind the United 787 on the taxiway) got wise and switched on their full landing lights (you can see in the second video still how the UA jet gets lit up) to attract attention. AC initiated the go around prior to ATC telling them, so I wonder if that was the final piece of the puzzle that got them to pull up? If so, kudos to the PAL flight crew for the quick thinking.
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787 beacons are ridiculously bright at night too, almost blindingly so, to the point that they dazzle ground crews. Then stuff like this happens I don't really have grounds to complain about anti-collision lights being too bright.
At what point would they be able to visually see the planes on their intended landing runway? They were all the way up the taxiway. With lights and everything. Maybe I don't appreciate the view from the cockpit. Can they see? They must be able to.
this is just amazing to me.
There is really no good reason for them not to see the airplanes on the taxiway. In fact they apparently did and questioned tower, but then quite inexplicably continued the approach.
As far as the view, I will say that at times it can look like a sea of lights on the ground. There are a bunch of white, blue, yellow and green lights, and the lights on the aircraft may not particularly stand out. As well, often planes will turn off their taxi lights while holding short, in order not to distract the approaching A/C.
Not to defend the actions of the crew, just to try to give some insight into some ways that the crew may have missed things.
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