What really happened here..!!!????

[JanetFlight]

Wooooowwwwww....kudos to that ATC Lady...Unbelievable <3

BTW...Tells the Legend that after 2000 years GTT keeps turning to final ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CtE6WSWHEU

[pattern_is_full]

Hmmm - interesting note over to the right on this posting re: XB-GTT

https://www.jetphotos.com/registration/XB-GTT

[Big Pistons Forever]

Wow, that was hard to listen to. What a complete Shyte Show by the Citation pilot

[Check Airman]

What on Earth could’ve caused that?

[ATC Watcher]

What on Earth could’ve caused that?
Incapacited instructor ?

[FUMR]

Really weird. Under the influence of something? It would seem that his main difficulty was slowing down sufficiently.

[meleagertoo]

Under the influence of something I reckon. His situational awareness and aircraft control (ie headings and speed) are almost non-existent. It would be instructive to see his vertical profile too.

[FUMR]

And it may have been a single pilot operation. One presumes that the FAA would have initiated an investigation if ATC reported this rather unusual occurrence.

[Check Airman]

And it may have been a single pilot operation. One presumes that the FAA would have initiated an investigation if ATC reported this rather unusual occurrence.

What would the FAA be able to do to a (presumably) Mexican crew flying a Mexican aircraft?

[FUMR]

What would the FAA be able to do to a (presumably) Mexican crew flying a Mexican aircraft?

As a minimum, I'd like to believe that a report could be filed by the FAA to the Mexican authorities and that this particular pilot is banned from operating an aircraft in US airspace.

[ATC Watcher]

Well, being the devil's adcocate : whas this really a safety issue ? nobody lost its calm , he did not cause any harm to anyone , landed safely in the end. Mexican operated/registered. Not sure this will be a high priority for the NTSB especially at the moment...

[pattern_is_full]

Under the influence of something I reckon.

I have to admit I wondered in passing if the pilot had been sampling some of that "Midnight Express cargo" in the back. But probably just stereotyping - his comms were generally crisp and clear (if ineffective).

I also wondered about....

And it may have been a single pilot operation.

.....a newly-minted pilot/owner. It should be noted, however, that the CE-650s are not certified for single-pilot. Not that that would necessarily stop someone with enough "sense of privilege," ego and chutzpah....and a new toy.

Incapacit[at]ed instructor ?

Possibly - but no mention of that in the comms. I might expect a call for medical aid to meet the aircraft.

This would usually be more of a question of an FAA "ramp check" after landing, not a major investigation. But easier said than done at zero-ack-emma. "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!" ;)

[albatross]

I don’t think he had the airport, much less the runway in sight when he said he did and his request for 30 R would have had me pushing the buttons for the equipment. Of course we don’t know what the controller is saying to other folks in the Twr. That he could not even place himself on xwind, downwind, base or final speaks volumes…was the aircraft even capable of being correctly configured for landing at the speeds he seems to be flying. What speed is he maintaining…any idea?

[Avman]

Well, being the devil's adcocate : whas this really a safety issue ? nobody lost its calm , he did not cause any harm to anyone , landed safely in the end. Mexican operated/registered. Not sure this will be a high priority for the NTSB especially at the moment...

I understand what you are saying but it wasn't just a little oopsie. How many attempts did he make? Why was he all over the place. Did he display good airmanship? Sure, no one was hurt.....this time!

[hans brinker]

Hmmm - interesting note over to the right on this posting re: XB-GTT

https://www.jetphotos.com/registration/XB-GTT


"One of the few "truly" registered private jets in Mexico! Let me explain: In this country, registrations fall into 3 categories (excluding military)… They are as follows: Commercial [XA], Non-Commercial [XB], and governmental..."

So owner/operator?

[ATC Watcher]

I understand what you are saying but it wasn't just a little oopsie. How many attempts did he make? Why was he all over the place. Did he display good airmanship? Sure, no one was hurt.....this time!
We had a similar case in my oold centre some years back when the first Very light jets arrived. . From memory : a US Citation Mustang ( if I remember correctly) came accross the Atlantic with a flight plan to Dusseldorf, , could not find any of the waypoints , used non-standard phraseology and made 2 or 3 attempts to land before the DUS TWR cleared all traffic and let him land alone. He was met by ATC guys on the tramac who find out there were 2 old buddies in their 80s flying outside of the US for the first time having bought the jet only a few weeks before . But all paperwork , licences were OK, so they got a verbal reprimand for not having properly planned their flight, But as far as I know the BFU ( German NTSB) did not get involved.

[jimjim1]

ADSB Exchange link, good coverage to and on ground.

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=0d0a9f&lat=36.218&lon=-115.192&zoom=13.4&showTrace=2023-03-09&leg=2&trackLabels&timestamp=1678332097

[DIBO]

I doubt if anything "medical" was going on, pilot's comms were pretty good for a non-native speaker.
If you look at the previous 30 or so flights:
* none were in the dark, except on its home-base (Monterrey)
* no go-arounds
* look all more like instrument (or radar vectored) approaches
KVGT has only medium runway edgelights and 3° PAPI, no approach lights.
The airport in the middle of a 'sea of lights'
The 2 main roads immediately adjacent to the airport, are oriented and intersecting almost identical to the 2 main runways.
They came in initially at speeds around 190 (GS, but wind pretty calm), and only after a few attempts, it stabilized more or less below 150.

If it is the same crew that flew all the other flights, I would not be surprised that their recent visual night-flying experience/skills were low, came in (mentally) unprepared and fast, had difficulty establishing and maintaining visual contact with the airfield, and some degree of spatial disorientation.

If ATC was able/allowed to give vectors for a visual approach, they should have done that after the first attempt or two.
And switching off the 30R runway's lights, might have been a good idea (especially as they were overshooting the final of 30L a couple of times)

Everybody is applauding ATC, but I don't know, they were sitting in their familiar TWR, low traffic and but the disoriented pilots maybe the first time in Vegas and at night, in a fast Citation....
Some examples where I think ATC might have improved to score a "very good"
"Turn right to lineup with downwind" (better and more precise: turn right heading 120° to....)
"Continue that present heading 070" (3 seconds later: Correction 250)
"Begin a left turn now 45° to line up" (if a pilot is confused/getting lost, don't mix course adjustment degrees, with heading degrees - although the pilot seemed to understand/acknowledge everything correctly, so not an issue in this case)
"Continue northbound, just continue your heading northbound" (but only a few moments later ) "I told you to fly the heading, you're going northbound now" (!!!??? pretty confusing, even from the armchair)
(while still north of the field -tail towards the field, so no visual- and northbound, in sort of a very wide right crosswind for 30L) "Begin a left turn to enter a left base - correction a left crosswind for runway 30L"
"Turn right 25° for the crosswind, you're about to line up for runway 12L." (again mixing adjustment degrees and heading between instructions) "Traffic is a helicopter over the field" (all the pilots needed, some other traffic to watch out for)
(on one of the failed attempts, overshooting the final) "continue left turn over the field to join left downwind" (but that makes them lose visual after crossing the field, better would have been to let them continue circle -lefthand- the field so that the left seater could maintain visual on the rwy all the time, and better estimate&fly the downwind entry)

[BFSGrad]

Everybody is applauding ATC, but I don't know...I’ll toss my hat into the one-hand-clapping ring for the local controller. If the pilot can’t execute basic instructions like enter a downwind for a visual approach, the LC should have either offered an instrument approach or another airport. In addition to confusing vectors (how often do you hear an LC issue specific vectors?), comments like “you’re too fast” leaned too much toward LC acting as pilot.

One compliment I will extend to the traffic-pattern-mangler is that he managed to stay clear of the Class B, not always an easy task at KVGT.

[hans brinker]

I’ll toss my hat into the one-hand-clapping ring for the local controller. If the pilot can’t execute basic instructions like enter a downwind for a visual approach, the LC should have either offered an instrument approach or another airport. In addition to confusing vectors (how often do you hear an LC issue specific vectors?), comments like “you’re too fast” leaned too much toward LC acting as pilot.

One compliment I will extend to the traffic-pattern-mangler is that he managed to stay clear of the Class B, not always an easy task at KVGT.

The LC does deserve credit for staying calm. AFAIK there are no approaches for 30L or 30R, so other than turning the whole airport around, there was no way to vector him for an approach. I think if the LC would have given more positive control, assigned heading altitude and speed until short final, this would have been a much shorter video, but I don't know is the LC is authorized/able to do that. I do hope there will be an investigation. Although nothing ended up going wrong, it could very easily have. I hate to throw stones from my glass house, but the pilot in that plane should not have been flying. Either not that day, or not ever....

[ehwatezedoing]

We had a similar case in my oold centre some years back when the first Very light jets arrived. . From memory : a US Citation Mustang ( if I remember correctly) came accross the Atlantic with a flight plan to Dusseldorf, , could not find any of the waypoints , used non-standard phraseology and made 2 or 3 attempts to land before the DUS TWR cleared all traffic and let him land alone. He was met by ATC guys on the tramac who find out there were 2 old buddies in their 80s flying outside of the US for the first time having bought the jet only a few weeks before . But all paperwork , licences were OK, so they got a verbal reprimand for not having properly planned their flight, But as far as I know the BFU ( German NTSB) did not get involved.
Yes there is clowns like that who get on a plane like they do with a car and somehow Darwin keep missing them.

[EDLB]

Spatial disorientation over Vegas at a CAVOK night??? There are not much places on earth with better illumination at night. Assume that he had a decent glas cockpit, so finding that 30L runway should be easy even if he would be left with only a whisky compass. Any 10h student pilot should have done better. My assumption is that the PF had serious issues with his eyesight and not the experience to compensate for that.

Very nice and calm ATC. Inbound and landing at LAS I had often the impression that they tested me how much ATC frequency changes I could write on my kneepad and not screw up...

[ATC Watcher]

. My assumption is that the PF had serious issues with his eyesight and not the experience to compensate for that...
You could be right there, listening again to the recording , it would seem the guy doing the R/T is just a parrot repeating instructions, (and he sounds Asian.hence my initial thought he was a trainee with an instructor.) Now listening to 07:15 on the initial post video, it could be that the PF has only now visual both "both runways" for the first time , and he made a succesfull landing after that. The variations of speed during the incident would also indicate he was manually flying the whole time and probably misidentifed the airport runways before.

[albatross]

You could be right there, listening again to the recording , it would seem the guy doing the R/T is just a parrot repeating instructions, (and he sounds Asian.hence my initial thought he was a trainee with an instructor.) Now listening to 07:15 on the initial post video, it could be that the PF has only now visual both "both runways" for the first time , and he made a succesfull landing after that. The variations of speed during the incident would also indicate he was manually flying the whole time and probably misidentifed the airport runways before.

Mexican registered aircraft so probably a Mexican accent ….yes “Mexican Spanish” is different sounding than a “European Spanish” accent.

[BFSGrad]

The LC does deserve credit for staying calm. AFAIK there are no approaches for 30L or 30R, so other than turning the whole airport around, there was no way to vector him for an approach. I think if the LC would have given more positive control, assigned heading altitude and speed until short final, this would have been a much shorter video, but I don't know is the LC is authorized/able to do that.Yes, the LC did remain calm but her frustration was audible (justified). Regarding available approaches, the only instrument approaches are to the 12 runways. However, if you listen to the extended version, the only other aircraft in the Class D were an inbound helo and an aircraft on the ground with IFR release being held until GTT could stick the landing. Thus, sending GTT off to the NW for an instrument approach would appear to have had minimal impact on airport ops and may have expedited the departure of the waiting aircraft. If I counted correctly, our intrepid aviator finally reunited with terra firma on the 5th attempt.

Regarding the LC asserting more positive control, as I recall there was an extended debate about the duties/capabilities/responsibilities of Class D ATC in the May 2021 KAPA mid-air collision. Don’t recall if there was a consensus.

[hans brinker]

Yes, the LC did remain calm but her frustration was audible (justified). Regarding available approaches, the only instrument approaches are to the 12 runways. However, if you listen to the extended version, the only other aircraft in the Class D were an inbound helo and an aircraft on the ground with IFR release being held until GTT could stick the landing. Thus, sending GTT off to the NW for an instrument approach would appear to have had minimal impact on airport ops and may have expedited the departure of the waiting aircraft. If I counted correctly, our intrepid aviator finally reunited with terra firma on the 5th attempt.

Regarding the LC asserting more positive control, as I recall there was an extended debate about the duties/capabilities/responsibilities of Class D ATC in the May 2021 KAPA mid-air collision. Don’t recall if there was a consensus.

Agree.....filler

[albatross]

I think the controller did very well while probably asking herself “What the hell is wrong with this fellow?”.

I recall a controller once telling a pilot: “Fly Heading of 090, exit my control zone, never come back!”
Everyone on the freq. agreed totally with the call!

[Doering]

Flight recreated with Flight Simulator and ATC Live Cessna Citation Unable to Locate Runway Over Las Vegas Airport- Multiple Attempts to Land- ATC Audio