28th Dec 2014 03:12
Molokai When HNL tower ordered them to break off the approach, it was just before Camp HM Smith. They were told to turn right to join left base 04R if they had the runway insight. Both the pilots agreed that they had 04R in sight and they went for it!
RW08R was the departure runway with many aircrafts waiting for departure. They were not offered the side-step for 08R! If they were on the arm chairs in the retirement home " bunk flying ", they might have demanded to side-step for 08R!
That would be somewhere near the Honolulu Observatory where they would have been around 600-500ft on the glide! If they had hit TOGA, they would have their hands full maneuvering for the visual left base.
Years ago we had a so called ace botched a similar maneuver on a 767 pulling up just after the Barbers Point Golf Course. He hit toga and had a hard time managing the automatics after that. Even after clicking off george and arty, he overshot the whole jingbang visual eyeball thingy onto 04R. HNL probably had a good laugh and vectored him again for a wide right base 08L. I was the poor suffering F/O and we had a very sullen evening at red lobsters instead of the usual lively watering hole...'nuff said!
