PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Tales from Kai Tak - 15 Years On
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Old 31st May 2021, 23:41
  #137 (permalink)  
CV880
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: North America
Age: 79
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There must be many stories of "hairy" approaches to 13 but the potentially most dangerous one I am aware of occurred in the early 70's before Malaysia Singapore Airlines had split into MAS & SIA and maybe before the IGS was operational.
Dark night with typical tropical downpour. I was sitting in our ramp office at Bay 5 waiting for next assignment to land when the tower controller said in a most urgent tone "MSAxxx turn right and go around immediately" repeating it once or twice. I stepped outside to see what was up and the MSA 737 went directly overhead (at Bay 5!!) wobbled a bit then swooped over to regain the runway centreline and climbed out through the gap. MSA then requested an ILS for 31 with a tailwind and landed normally. Apparently they had missed the point at which they should have commenced turning onto the runway heading and their landing lights were seen by the tower through the heavy rain heading toward Choi Hung at which point the tower issued his urgent instruction. I heard the next day the chequerboard flood lights had shorted out in the heavy rain but don't know if this was true or just speculation.
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