RYR 'forgot' to get landing clearance!

[kick the tires]

Ryanair pilots 'forgot' saftey procedures | UK | News | Daily Express (http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/384865/Ryanair-pilots-forgot-saftey-procedures)

Which may explain why ALC TWR were so pi$$ed off with RYR a few days ago when they self positioned for a 3 mile final instead of 10 miles as instructed.

[Cows getting bigger]

I would say more of an insight into the state of Spanish ATC than a RYR bashing opportunity.

[BOAC]

What is this 'listening on emergency frequency on finals' thing? An SOP?

[172_driver]

What is this 'listening on emergency frequency on finals' thing? An SOP?

No, SOP is just during cruise. Someone got it wrong.

[JW411]

Well, since my first solo in 1957 I have tried unsuccessfully to be a perfect pilot and I have now admitted defeat.

I have to admit that on two occasions in my professional career I have got airborne without actually receiving take-off clearance. Anyone else out there done the same?

A lot of these events involve a frequency change such as Ground to Tower or Approach to Tower.

I can remember coming down finals on a very busy night at Cologne. We were told to change to Tower. No answer. (It transpired that the tower had suffered a power failure). We made a go-around and reconnected with Approach.

Subsequently, the chap in the Tower indignantly told me that he had been flashing a Red Light at me with his Aldis lamp. I suppose that would have covered his a*se at the subsequent board of inquiry but how in God's name would he expect us to have seen his Aldis lamp signals?

Most pilots have no idea where the tower actually is on a major international airfield and who the hell would look for it anyway at night?

I am sure that the captain involved is very embarrassed.

Let he who casts the first stone.....it must be wonderful to be perfect.

[fmgc]

The CIAIAC report made 10 safety recommendations including a proposed ban on Ryanair pilots lowering the volume on the emergency frequency.

That'a an outrageous recommendation, you really don't want to be monitoring the emergency frequency during a critical stage of flight like the approach and landing!

I wonder how Ryanair will handle this with the Pilots concerned.

[kcockayne]

I was an ATCO for over 30 years & witnessed several aircraft (from well known airlines) land without receiving a clearance. On every occasion it was not a big deal. There was no other a/c on the runway (or cleared onto the runway - & I kept a good look out for any incursions). I just let the lander continue to touchdown without making a fuss.

In these circumstances I did not feel the need to admonish the pilot, simply to remind him of the need to receive a clearance before landing (once he had landed). I think safety was served just as well by this procedure rather than going into print on the occurrence.

Perhaps, by doing this, the pilot was embarrassed sufficiently to make sure that he never did it again !

[Dan Dare]

Well said JW411, as long as there are humans involved there will be human error. It gets right on my moobs when the pen pushers expect the same level of perfection from real-time actions as they can achieve from 2 years of post-incident analysis.

[BOAC]

kcockayne- don't forget to add to your measured and sensible approach that Spain and RyanAir are not in love.

[Good Business Sense]

When 121.5 in Europe stops being a chat frequency then maybe pilots won't turn it down - it's bad, very distracting and getting worse !

[eastern wiseguy]

Is it just the UK that retains ALDIS in the Tower? I remember giving a Big Airways aircraft a steady green and then spending ages convincing him that he HAD had a landing clearance from me. He was determined to file on himself(he had set 118.5 instead of 118.3).Mind you that was before NATS became today's NATS .


There is more to this than meets the eye.:hmm:

[kcockayne]

BOAC

RYR & I are not in love either !

But, that goes for the company & NOT the pilots.

We all make mistakes. Hopefully, we learn from them & don't repeat them. I find that this process is improved by not castigating people for honest mistakes - if at all possible.

Thankyou for your comments.

[JW411]

Well, I simply cannot imagine that anyone with half a brain is still listening to 121.5 on Box 2 below 10,000 feet in today's environment.

It is quite simply totally ridiculous and bizarre to expect anyone flying anything apart from a hot-air balloon to be monitoring Guard when approaching or departing from an airfield.

I would consider such advice to be a serious flight safety hazard.

[ShyTorque]

Well, I simply cannot imagine that anyone with half a brain is still listening to 121.5 on Box 2 below 10,000 feet in today's environment.

Maybe I don't even have half a brain, but despite your imagination, some of us (often IFR in Class G) never get as high as 10,000 feet but are expected to listen out on 121.5. ;)

Most incorrect usage we hear comes from airline pilots inadvertently using the frequency, i.e. they think they are on a different frequency, such as company ops, their handling agent at destination, or "Shanwick". No particular company seems to be the main culprit.

I don't turn it down, I flick the listen switch on the comms box to "OFF"; unlike turning down the rotary volume knob it gives a visual indication that it's been temporarily deselected.

[Facelookbovvered]

I don't think there is anything wrong with Ryanairs procedures, I know there is a lot wrong with Spanish ATC in general and especially at ALC, at least at Malaga it controller on the job training monitored at ALC the guy on the radio at Andrewsfield has more idea what's going on.

With regards to 121.5 the only time I listen to that below 10K is outside controlled airspace or on simultaneous approaches at Paris.

LHR/LGW are very good, the Dutch are excellent in a relaxed having a spliff sort of way,but with the Spanish at times it like a Basil Fawlty sketch " it would be easier to train an ape"

The is a lot of bad blood between Southern European governments and FR but that's down to the boss not the drivers, you can't expect to get any lee way when you call the Spanish lazy tossers and your blamed for the melt down of their terms and conditions.

[Herod]

They realised the landing lights were not switched on during the after-landing checks? Tactical Ops now, is it?

[JW411]

No; I think I can answer this one.

We are constantly trying to make flying safer.

One of the good ideas that I came across in my long career was the use of landing/taxi lights to help us remember if we had take-off/landing clearance or not.

The way it works is this:

PNF: On receipt of T/O clearance, puts the Taxi Lights to Take Off. This can be a reminder/confirmation that take-off clearance has been given to the other pilot.

PNF: On finals, put the Taxi Lights to Take Off when landing clearance has been given (except when LVPs are in force).

My guess is that the FR captain was using such a system and that was why he was able to apologise when he realised that the lights were still to Taxi as he taxied in.

[JW411]

Herod:

Were you the guy that I nearly hit on Upavon Gallops one night with just three goosenecks on the strip?

[fireflybob]

My guess is that the FR captain was using such a system and that was why he was able to apologise when he realised that the lights were still to Taxi as he taxied in.

When I last flew for said Company they did have an SOP wrt use of landing lights when cleared for take off or cleared to land.

Also, as has been said previously, the SOP for 121.5 MHz was to monitor during cruise.

Notwithstanding that one would consider use of 121.5 MHz in the event of Comms Failure on normal ATC freqs.

The newspaper article is full of the usual journo sensationalism so nothing new there.

[nitpicker330]

What is the problem? :confused:

In our carrier we always have 121.5 tuned on VHF 2.

We are grown adults so when the radio gets annoying WE TURN IT DOWN A BIT UNTIL THE IDIOTS STOP CHATTING. :mad:

Don't forget that all ATC units have the ability to transmit on 121.5 if they need to. Plenty of crews have been located this way and I'm sure a few received landing clearance as well. :ok:

So in my opinion it's good Airmanship to listen out on 121.5.

It's not rocket science people for gods sake...:ugh::{

[Agaricus bisporus]

Nice to see people standing up for the drivers here. I'm no Ryanair fan at all and frankly its hard to defend landing an airliner without clearance, BUT...

The list of "but"s is a long one.

On the face of it an incident like this is likely to be rooted in either complacency of a surprising degree, or fatigue. We've all been there, and I'm sure we all read this tale with a slightly smug but sympathetic feeling of "Jeez! Glad it wasn't me!"

Landing without clearance is rightly regarded as a serious error but on a realistic scale of added hazard its some way down the list. Lie somewhere near the bottom imho. In good vis and assuming usual visual alertness its a pretty much no-extra-hazard event isn't it?

Problem arises when non aviation people (the meeja-led pubberlik) assume that everything a pilot does "obviously" has to be "with permission" in order to turn the event from immediately fatal to perfectly safe. Its a report bred of a fundamental lack of understanding and also the emotions based on scores of hollywood derived assumptions. eg the spurious crap about listening to emergency channels during landing. How many dangerous situations would we get into if that were a regular feature of our approaches - I'm thinking "practice Pan, practice Pan" all day long in summer UK.

Sadly my company (not too far from Ryanair) had SOP'd out of existence the vital ability to incorporate landing light switching as an aide memoire, this being part of the endless drive to destroy Airmanship in the name of conformity.

Dutch Capt, 22yr old FO, you have my sympathy in your current troubles, esp given where the incident occurred.

[Get me some traffic]

ALL ATC units have the ability to transmit and listen out on 121.5? Are you sure?

[Good Business Sense]

JW411 I would consider such advice to be a serious flight safety hazard

Couldn't agree more - now that airline SOPs have an ever increasing amount of standard calls, which must be strictly adhered to, they are increasingly blotting out ATC calls as we seem to talk continuously from 10-15,000'. Add 121.5 in Europe and it is a serious distraction.

This problem increases despite the current push for ensuring less distraction in the cockpit in the descent and approach (ban on sipping water being discussed in EASA land) :confused:

One thing's for sure - miss an ATC call which leads to an incident, through listening out to the chat on 121.5, and you'll even find the Spanish authorities completely changing their "recommendation" and you'll be toasted.

[737Jock]

The plane, flown by a 47-year-old Dutch captain and a British co-pilot, 22, took off from East Midlands, in Leicestershire, at about 7pm on January 6, 2011.

Ryanair notes the CIAIAC *report into an aircraft landing at Alicante Airport on January 6, 2011, and the recommendations outlined within.

My bold... 2011!!!

Spanish atc have a gripe with ryanair, this report of a minor event that happened 2 years ago makes quite clear how petty they are! I believe this was during the air traffic controller strikes in spain, when indeed military controllers took over and forced the controllers to work. Which might explain the controllers horrible attitude.

Ryanair pilots 'forgot' saftey procedures

Do we seriously need to discuss this any further....

[loubylou]

Re 121.5 - I've been at my current unit for 10 years and haven't had the ability to listen to that freq since before I joined. At my last unit, it was removed about 15 or so years ago.
Might be a different case in Spain.
Not sure what the controllers were doing though - if the chap on final hasn't called by about 4nm, and doesn't answer a call, then chances are they are still on the previous freq so a quick call to the previous controller would usually sort that out, or failing that, blind transmissions, clearing the guy to land or go around.
It seems a bit mean to not make best efforts to contact the aircraft and then file on them!
For all I can't bear MOL, personally I've always found the RYR crews as professional as any other airline, and in some cases, a bit more "can do" than some

[Daermon ATC]

Is it just the UK that retains ALDIS in the Tower?
Nope, spanish towers also have them.

Back on topic, the event seems pretty straigthforward and as pointed out before, errors do happen ... on both sides of the radio. Fortunately these kind of things do tend to happen when it's a bit quiter on the frecuency (and I assume this was the case as the atcos weren't aware they had a plane about to land) so no great safety risk this time.

As for the supposed horrible attitude of the controllers I can't really fault them from what I read from the article. First of all you all know that safety reports are mandatory and not aimed to blame anyone but to identify problems and resolve them before they turn into an accident. This was a serious (in terms of possible consequences) error and therefore they had to report it, no matter what explanation the captain could have offered.
This is especially true during the time when spanish atcos had military supervisors next to them on duty and were subject to military law.

In any case take that report with a grain on salt... CIAIAC does not have precisely a sparkling reputation and has been repeatedly pointed at for always placing the blame on the pilot/atco while never finding anything wrong with Aena... see the report on the spanair accident in Madrid, for example.

[Hobo]

The quality of the article can be guaged by the pictures. FR only flies -800s with winglets. The lower pic is even of a -200!

[JammedStab]

I was an ATCO for over 30 years & witnessed several aircraft (from well known airlines) land without receiving a clearance. On every occasion it was not a big deal. There was no other a/c on the runway (or cleared onto the runway - & I kept a good look out for any incursions). I just let the lander continue to touchdown without making a fuss.

In these circumstances I did not feel the need to admonish the pilot, simply to remind him of the need to receive a clearance before landing (once he had landed). I think safety was served just as well by this procedure rather than going into print on the occurrence.

Perhaps, by doing this, the pilot was embarrassed sufficiently to make sure that he never did it again !

I think I might then remind you to give me the landing clearance prior to landing.

If you see someone about to land at say 100 feet and you are OK with it, why don't you just transmit a quick landing clearance and therefore prevent the pilot from having to write a report and perhaps be suspended. You will likely get a thank you.

[J03BL0GGS]

I think I might then remind you to give me the landing clearance prior to landing.

If you see someone about to land at say 100 feet and you are OK with it, why don't you just transmit a quick landing clearance and therefore prevent the pilot from having to write a report and perhaps be suspended. You will likely get a thank you.

I have experienced this on many an occasion at YMMB, given the ability it has to go from dead to full circuits within the blink of an eyelid often the busy ATC guys will just give a call "<insert call sign> clear to land/touch and go, no need to respond", considering YMMB traffic is mainly students it's really helpful for them and for the students/instructors. They also seem to judge when to use it depending on both the traffic situation i.e. an aircraft ahead is on the runway and determine whether it will make a taxi way before telling them to go around but also whether it's apparent the student is struggling, the radio calls are a mess or the instructor has to make a call after the original to clarify or the circuits are a mess. I personally think it's great when they do that, especially with the propensity students have to go well past the numbers and the keys, even with 8 aircraft in the circuit prior to a change in the airspace I never once felt it was an issue with those guys.

The calls usually come in well before my personal decision point, only once was it an issue but that was my first solo and they were trying hard to make sure I got down on my first circuit, however the clown ahead of me decided to keep taxiing on the runway to save the taxiways and I ended up just going around.

And on especially busy days when the guys are really taking a battering I do try give them a gentle nudge, or if the traffic pattern is so bunched just go around to spread things out.

I can understand that the pilots made a mistake and it wasn't deliberate, and we all have, but I can't really understand how two people didn't twig at any point on the approach, it just seems like something that would have come up at some point...

[Herod]

This talk of SOPs; is it no longer SOP to have landing lights on below 10,000'?

[Agaricus bisporus]

Herod, that depends on the airline of course.

In mine it is "up to the crew" which a distressing proportion (100% of FOs and I suspect a great many Captains) take as an opportunity to demonstrate their pavlovian mania for a microscopic and probably imaginary "fuel saving" by keeping them off/stowed. Even in the busiest airspace in the Europe.

[kcockayne]

JammedStab

I have no problem with what you suggest.

What I wanted to do, with my original reply, was to highlight that this incident was not necessarily catastrophic & that there was, perhaps, no necessity to go into print & make a big deal out of it, or to sensationalise it in any way.

On the occasions in which I witnessed this sort of event, this was certainly the case. But, as you say, it would have been practical to transmit a landing clearance before the a/c had landed.

Having ascertained that there was no danger resulting from "landing without a clearance", I was simply curious to discover whether the pilot realised his mistake & would make a belated request to land.

Nevertheless, I do feel that a quiet word (in these circumstances) is much more beneficial than taking an official, & officious, line & unleashing the full gamut of admonishment & blame which, so often, occurs nowadays - when everyone feels the need to "cover their arses" when the probable involvement of SRG etc. is potentially involved; & to go into print on the matter.

I am so glad that my carrer spanned the years when, what I consider, "common sense" was the most important factor in ATC.

[Jo90]

Many Boeings have a minimal checklist attached to the control wheel. My company never used these but there was a sliding marker along one side presumably meant to be used as an aide memoir for how far through the list you had gone.

I made it a habit to use this as a cleared to TO/land indicator - up for TO, down for land.

It was comforting when the FO asked on short finals 'did he clear us to land?' to have something to confirm that 'yes, he has' rather than suddenly wondering whether that was actually on the last sector.

Those who minimise the seriousness of not receiving a clearance may not have had the experience of someone taking off on a runway which crosses the one on which you are just rolling out. I can tell you that it produces a distinct tightening of various sphincter muscles!

[Willit Run]

Nitpicker,

Spot on!

[JW411]

Herod:

"Is it not SOP to have landing lights on below 10,000 feet."

In my last company it was SOP to put the landing lights to "Taxi" at 10,000 ft on the way down. But not to the "Land" selection.

The "Land" selection produced a much higher brightness and resulted in the (very expensive) bulbs having to be replaced much more often for no good reason.

[mary meagher]

Jo90, did that pucker time you mention take place at Chicago?

[RAT 5]

This is more than a 'landing without clearance issue'. Someone mentioned RYR has a landing clearance action of using the retractable landing lights, and that this is in the check list. Thus this is also about not completing a checklist. That is a more interesting issue; how it might happen? Was there such a rush? Either way a checklist is a checklist.

[p7lot]

I'm still smiling at the "aldis lamp" post #5......takes me back

[Torque Tonight]

Errors are human nature. Say 1 in 1000 times you mishear, misunderstand, forget the clearance, but the guy in the other seat rectifies your error. This will be the 1 in 1000000 where both pilots missed the call (or lack of it) simultaneously. I would not be surprised distraction from Spanish ATC was a factor. On many occasions in Spain I have had ATC transmitting in barely intelligible broken English a multitude of non-timely information such as turnoffs, taxi routings, parking stands, while we're flying down the approach trying to configure the aircraft and complete checklists. As for monitoring 121.5 whilst on approach and inviting more distraction and noise - no way.

[Airbanda]

Cannot find a report on the CIAIC website in either Spanish or English but avherald report is here:

Incident: Ryanair B738 at Alicante on Jan 6th 2011, landed without clearance (http://avherald.com/h?article=437de80e)

[bubbers44]

I think most of us are not perfect so errors will be made occasionally. Try to help the person out, not punish him. I have bailed out controllers and they have bailed me out of situations. Out of thousands of landings how many can say never once they didn't have a landing clearance? How many times have you saved a controller by telling him he is causing a conflict so you can not do what he cleared you for?

Our pilots organized golfing tournaments with the LAX and SFO controllers to get to know them with the assistance of our incredibly sexy flight attendants to run the beer carts. Yes, we did get a bit of special treatment in the skies the sky nazis didn't get. United didn't have golf tournaments, we did.

[Mikehotel152]

Service-x What is wrong with, please confirm, we're cleared to land?


Simple. The answer, after the third call, when you're 13 inches off the tarmac, will be: "er, Station calling?"

[A and C]

I have to agree with those above who feel that this also reflects on the political situation inside Spanish ATC.

For some time now Spanish ATC despite being some of the best paid controllers in Europe have been working to rule, you won't get a level change or a direct routing out of them or a visual approach unless it is from about 12 miles so it might as well be the full procedure.

Add to this the anti RYR feeling in Spain that has been encouraged by the media and you get this mole hill made into a mountain.

[Jo90]

Mary M

Chicago is a sensible guess but it was in fact FCO

[mary meagher]

Jo90 - I bet Rome approach has been rather active this week! Presumably they are less laid back than Alicante was at the end of a busy day....trust in God, but don't forget your clearance!

[Spitoon]

Report is here (http://www.fomento.gob.es/NR/rdonlyres/EAFD4830-2828-4F64-AF0F-30593F00E66F/116233/2012_Boletin_05.pdf) - English version in the Addenda, starting page 107.

Not a particularly impressive investigation by the look of it. The recommendations made appear to miss some obvious holes in the cheese whilst the majority seem to have a bit of a scatter gun appearance focusing on the use of 121.5.

Although the thread has drifted off the specific incident a little, there are one or two simple facts. In Europe, landing without a clearance falls fairly clearly within the scope of mandatory reporting. And, as we all know, reporting is done with the objective of improving safety - not apportioning blame.

Forgetting to get a landing clearance can happen. When I was controlling there were occasions when I thought I'd given the landing clearance and the pilot called to confirm as the aircraft came over the fence - and I'd confirm the clearance, but wonder to myself whether I'd actually transmitted the clearance. It happens, we're human. And incidents like this can help us all to develop SOPs or our own little aide-memoires to help overcome our human weaknesses.

The thing that puzzles me is why (or how) two controllers appear not to have been monitoring their traffic to the extent that neither seems to have had the situational awareness to spot that a fairly fundamental part of their job was actually happening.

[Basil]

As an FO one of the things I REALLY hated, when I wasn't sure what ATC had said and requested "Say again.", was the captain or FE repeating what they THOUGHT ATC had said whilst I was attempting to hear the repeat.
It was something I learnt NOT to do when PIC.

[bubbers44]

Yes, that happened to us one day leaving MIA. The approach controller cleared us to 6,000 ft and the FO read it back and reset our altitude to 6,000. I said call and verify we are cleared to 6,000 and he said yes he cleared us to 6,000. I made him call and verify as I was shallowing my climb not to pass 5,000 ft as is our normal altitude and he said negative you are cleared to 5,000. He must have been doing arrivals and said 6,000 without realizing he said it. Helping each other keep it safe when someone errs is much nicer than filing a report.

[Basil]

bubbers44, Phew! But easier when you're the boss.

Although, as a 'Mr Nice Guy' captain, (wife and a couple of other troublemakers would dispute) I've had a couple of punchy FOs who had to be spoken to :)

I still think it was better to be 'Mr Nice Guy' and have the (very odd) FO think he could try it on than discourage a genuine anxiety being expressed. Some may call me underconfidant but I quite liked an experienced FO upon whom I could rely to draw my attention to an error.

When I was chucking a Chippy, JP or Jungmann around the sky; no, I didn't want someone telling me I was being silly - despite the fact that they may, on occasion, have been correct :)

[justanotherflyer]

@Torque Tonight:

Errors are human nature. Say 1 in 1000 times you mishear, misunderstand, forget the clearance, but the guy in the other seat rectifies your error. This will be the 1 in 1000000 where both pilots missed the call (or lack of it) simultaneously...

Your argument makes sense and I'm in agreement with reducing distractions such as 121.5, especially where lesser ATCs feel constrained to issue incessant chatter as we pass 3 mile final.

However regarding the 1 in 1000000: caution is recommended when squaring probabilities - the resulting huge numbers can be misleading in post-incident analysis. It's not unlikely the other guy will miss the call too, not because of mere chance but due to the same environmental factors, distractions, impractical SOPs, groupthink, whatever, that are affecting you in the first place.

It's not meant a critique of your point to say that pilots should be vigilant about having to "take the blame" because of overly simple probability theory - the kind that the insurance company is most likely to deploy in its favour!

The Sally Clark case (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1117305/) offers salutary food for thought.