Originally Posted by
ACMS
I asked before but was ignored.
1/ was the 28R ILS switched on? If not why not?
2/ where the HIAL's and RTZL's switched on? If not why not?
3/ did the crew bother to tune the 28R ILS and check it.?
This should not happen, if a runway is equipped with an ILS and it's not U/S then it should be switched on by ATC and all landing A/C should tune it to use as a backup for just this very reason.
Especially at Airports like SFO with close spaced runways and taxiways.
It's should be common sense and airmanship.
I have done many FMS Bridge visuals in the A320 family. You do not have the ILS raw data because it is an FMS approach. You have VASI and the electronic glidepath. You can hard tune the lLS through the RMP but no one ever does.
As others have said, you have to work to get it down to 1800 feet at SAMUL. You are given the clearance with no time to waste getting it in the descent out of 11000. Speedbrakes are usually required with speed changes given as well. Late night arrivals have less restrictions on speed so the tendency is to keep the speed up.
It's a massive dark hole coming in over the water. With 28L out and the lights off the tendency would be to focus on the lights you see - 28R and the taxiway. Preconceived expectations of what you should see can be hard to overcome. And the difference in lining up on the taxiway and the runway would not be apparatus to the tower until close in. If they were doing the PRM approaches then yeah, radar controller would have caught it a few miles sooner but Late night operations in good weather have minimum staffing. It works fine that way all the time.