Originally Posted by
WHBM
So how was it that when they came round again for their second approach they could be cleared for the ILS without issue.
More nonsense
, AC 759 was vectored for a visual approach to 28R the second time around. A visual approach is not the same as an ILS (although I'm sure some folks on this thread would argue otherwise). They were given a heading of 310 to join the final and cleared for a visual approach behind an AA 777 who was on the FMS Bridge Visual Approach 28R. It's on the tape at liveatc.net
Originally Posted by
DIBO
Well, they were requested to contact an FAA supervisor, and even given the phone no., before switching off. When did they call the FAA supervisor? What was discussed?
It sounded to me like AC 759 called ground on 121.8 while everyone else had been switched to tower freq on 120.5. Sounded like AC 759 said 'What is the phone number where we could reach you? The captain's going to give you a call.' The controller said 'sure' and gave the phone number over the air. It will indeed be interesting to hear what was discussed since ATC phone lines are usually recorded from what I've seen in NTSB reports. Or, were they doing midnight maintenance on the phone recorder and the tape is regrettably not available?
The old 30 minute CVR's used to have a union-mandated bulk erase button. And inevitably somehow this bulk erase button would often seem to 'accidentally' get pushed after an incident. As the NTSB put it in a famous 1979 upset investigation:
We believe the captain's erasure of the CVR is a factor we cannot ignore and cannot sanction. Although we recognize that habits can cause actions not desired or intended by the actor, we have difficulty accepting the fact that the captain's putative habit of routinely erasing the CVR after each flight was not restrainable after a flight in which disaster was only narrowly averted.
Our skepticism persists even though the CVR would not have contained any contemporaneous information about the events that immediately preceded the loss of control because we believe it probable that the 25 minutes or more of recording which preceded the landing at Detroit could have provided clues about causal factors and might have served to refresh the flightcrew's memories about the whole matter.
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/...ts/AAR8108.pdf