PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - A question to London Controllers
View Single Post
Old 15th Feb 2011, 11:38
  #10 (permalink)  
Bus Driver Man
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: MC80 Home One type Star Cruiser
Posts: 192
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Pera.. A few aircraft went down to around 1200 feet over London - some 11 miles from touchdown. Lord only knows why they did so but it was before the days of SSR height readouts so ATC was not aware. ATC normally descends traffic to intercept the ILS at around glidepath level, e.g 3000ft at 10 miles, etc. Some crews, having being told "cleared for the ILS" went down immediately instead of following the GP. There's a lot going on under the Heathrow glidepaths which is why the phraseology was changed.
I wonder where those pilots got their licence. The way I've learned it, is that when you are cleared for an ILS, you don't descend if you are not half scale on the localiser unless you are following the published minimum altitudes for a procedure (Not applicable for vectors ofcourse).
I don't like to see them do that in a mountainous area.
Bus Driver Man is offline