Lufty at SFO

[bean]

https://youtu.be/7rdapQfJDAM
I have nothing to add

[Capn Bloggs]

Ridiculous.

[Capt Fathom]

Which bit is ridiculous? The Lufty rules or the US ATC rules?

[Maisk Rotum]

Handled badly by both. If no vis app at night for them fine. It was communicated as such. ATC were less than accommodating by sending them to the hold. By that time both parties had become entrenched and then the crew threatened them with an an emergency call if ..... and what sounded like " and that will really **** up your...". To which ATC became more entrenched and invited them to call for a divert or shut up. All LH had to do was say "minimum fuel". To which ATC would be obliged to ask them for fuel remaining in minutes. Some sort of expedited sequencing should have then followed. Drama over. A few big egos on the radio here.

[Capt Fathom]

I'm assuming the published METAR was accurate.....
Visual approaches with FEW 500 & SCT 700. Sounds like GA!

[Capn Bloggs]

Also, pretty poor pre-planning by somebody to not advise the FAA or know that an International is not allowed to do Visual Approaches at night. Foreign Internationals doing Sight and Follow at night sounds a bit sus.

The ultimate humiliation: diverting to an airport 9nm across the bay.

[Capt Fathom]

It's a bit different in the US. You either fit in or you p!ss off. The same applies to the locals!

[Check Airman]

Ridiculous SOP at Lufthansa. You can't do a visual approach at night? That's absurd. The weather was fine. If fairness to the crew, they seem to have communicated their restriction immediately, but I also see the controller's viewpoint. He has 100 planes to get on the ground with tight spacing, and this heavy comes in and says he needs even more spacing than normal because of some stupid rule that an office-dweller came up with. You really cannot expect to operate into a busy US airport with that sort of restriction.

[BBK]

Going “visual” at night is an oxymoron surely?

To clarify due a comment below I mean in the context of visually acquiring preceding traffic.

[Capt Fathom]

The US also has it's fair share midairs.... in VMC at controlled airports. But that's OK, you have to keep the movement rate up!
Busy airports in other parts of the world seem to get by without resorting to visual approaches.

[PukinDog]

Also, pretty poor pre-planning by somebody to not advise the FAA or know that an International is not allowed to do Visual Approaches at night. Foreign Internationals doing Sight and Follow at night sounds a bit sus.

The ultimate humiliation: diverting to an airport 9nm across the bay.

San Francisco's runway 28L and 28R centerlines are 750' apart, so aircraft affirming they can maintain visual separation is the only way they can conduct simultaneous, parallel approaches, and it's not as haphazard as "doing Sight and Follow" either day or night: The aircraft in both streams are assigned altitudes, speeds for in-trail separation, and vectored up until final approach intercept in the same manner as one would be for an ILS. ATC usually feed them onto the final approach so they come down in slightly staggered pairs within easy sight of each other. In visual conditions and /w TCAS, it's an easy task to see who you're following and who you're forming-up with on the parallel runway. Also, in FAA-land even while on an instrument flight plan including the instrument approach, in Visual Meteorological Conditions the crew is still responsible for maintaining a visual watch to see and avoid other aircraft.

Which is where the "maintain visual separation" part comes in. In VMC, given the altitude, speed control for in-trail, and vectors to intercept final approach you'll receive from ATC, the only thing you're being asked to ensure is something you should, by regulation, be doing anyway; not overshooting your final turn and maintaining visual separation from the guy who's going to join the parallel final in case he does. This is done literally hundreds of times a day and night, weather permitting. There's an ILS LOC on each to back up the visual final, but obviously the focus during join-up is outside on the other aircraft.

Check Airman is correct. Somebody at a desk wrote an SOP not knowing that this common practice of "maintaining visual" exists for SFO due to the extra-close parallel runways, and when they have 100+ mile streams of inbound aircraft for 2 runways, upsetting the flow so 1 can shoot an ILS puts the airport into a single approach/runway operation, shutting the parallel down. Even if they did, being VMC they'd still have to look outside and watch for other aircraft. Their SOP does not relieve them of that responsibility.

The airport isn't going to prioritize or stuff-up their expeditious arrival flow for 1 Company's SOPs. I believe when the Controller asked Lufthansa not if he could "accept a visual approach" but rather "could he maintain visual separation" he was trying to help the guy out since the Controller knew he's required to do that anyway in VMC conditions. But then Lufthansa said that he couldn't even maintain visual separation, so his fate was sealed.

[PukinDog]

The US also has it's fair share midairs.... in VMC at controlled airports. But that's OK, you have to keep the movement rate up!
Busy airports in other parts of the world seem to get by without resorting to visual approaches.

Unless they're conducting PRM, busy airports in other parts of the world and the US aren't running parallel, simultaneous instrument approaches with runway centerlines 750' apart either (which is why SFO has to "resort" to it). SFO has PRM but of course the crews have to be trained and current. No visual approaches at SFO and you're down single runway ops numbers.

'Visual" at SFO 28s: Assigned altitudes, assigned speeds, vectors to intercept final w/speed control until close in. Published visual approach charts. LOC and G/S to back up. Literally, the only thing one has to do is confirm to ATC the traffic they've pointed out you're following and coming abeam of is in sight, make sure not to overshoot final, and then maintain a visual watch for the other aircraft as required by FAA regs in VMC.

Oh, one other thing. If on the visual approach at night, include in the brief the charted Approach Light System including the location of the Path indicator and, most importantly, confirm when they're in sight and correct. FAA regs also require, if visual, the glide path portion be followed when within it's valid distance. Bonus: Confirming the existence and correctness of the runway's ALS/PI is quick and easy, automatic insurance against doing something like lining-up and almost landing on a parallel taxiway (ahem..Air Canada). It's a ground-based navigation system to that runway, after all.

[Capn Bloggs]

and this heavy comes in and says he needs even more spacing than normal because of some stupid rule that an office-dweller came up with.
You and puke have missed my point.

Somewhere, either in Lufthansa or in the FAA, there has been a fundamental communication failure if an ATC didn't know, until told by a established international carrier captain only 40-odd miles from the airport, that they can't do visual approaches at night (which obviously includes maintaining visual sep).

​​​​​​​and w/TCAS
OK then. :rolleyes:

​​​​​​​I'm assuming the published METAR was accurate.....Visual approaches with FEW 500 & SCT 700.

The weather was fine.
Seriously?

[Capn Bloggs]

this heavy comes in and says he needs even more spacing than normal because of some stupid rule that an office-dweller came up with. You really cannot expect to operate into a busy US airport with that sort of restriction.
Speaking of office-dwellers:
​​​​​​​ATC used to be able to set aircraft up for the ILS even in visual conditions and get visual separation with the aircraft beside them.. that rule changed due to interpretations from people who don’t work traffic and now they can’t. These controllers are doing what they’ve been told to do by FAA management.

[Buswinker]

When did this happen?!

[gearlever]

When did this happen?!

According FR24 OCT 16th.

[Cornish Jack]

Possibly the Lufty 'office dweller' was influenced by the recent Denver Centenial mid-air ? "Flight Safety is no accident" :rolleyes:

[PukinDog]

You and puke have missed my point.

Somewhere, either in Lufthansa or in the FAA, there has been a fundamental communication failure if an ATC didn't know, until told by a established international carrier captain only 40-odd miles from the airport, that they can't do visual approaches at night (which obviously includes maintaining visual sep).


Didn't miss the point. It just didn't matter and the result would have been the same. If it's saturated, SFO isn't going to shut down the stream to the parallel runway and slow his own down just so Lufthansa can have his ILS.

​​​​​​​And how do we even know this established international carrier captain is even well-versed in his own Company's SOPs? After all and I may be wrong, but I doubt the Lufthansa Radiotelephony Phraseology Section of their RT SOPs has the note: "Don't say "F***" on the radio, except when outside EASA Airspace".

But hey, Lufthansa. I remember late one night in Riyadh Lufthansa holding short of a runway for at least 30 minutes blocking 5 or 6 other aircraft because the stop bar lights had malfunctioned and were stuck ON. No aircraft inbound for that runway and the excited controller tried telling, and eventually yelling, that he was cleared to cross the lights because they were broken. Yet still, being the captain of an established international air carrier, he refused, no doubt because despite the utter absence of inbound traffic and the controllers directives, it was in his SOPs. Not being able to taxi forward, turn around, or get out of the way, it was quite a mess for those stuck behind him who I'm sure were dropping some F-bombs themselves, just not on the radio. Happily, we avoided by launching off the other runway which, by necessity, they began using for departures. I don't know how long they all ended up sitting, but I suppose they stayed right where they were at until someone in a truck showed up to cut a wire or, more likely, smashed the lights to the OFF position with a hammer.

[WillowRun 6-3]

This quite interesting set of dialogues among and between the professionals is interrupted by this SLF/attorney just only to say a Thank You - Thank You - to PukinDog for referencing the Air Canada SFO very close call ("There's no one on Two-Eight Right but you") circa 2017. I was wondering if there was something about how runway and/or airfield layout might have affected ATC procedures or Airfield Operations in this instance.

And the hammer or wirecutter anecdote, very cool. I'm appropriating it.

[PAXboy]

The most curious aspect is that - LH operate into SFO every day and have done so for decades. Unless it was brand new, their SOP would have been understood and part of the system.

[Request Orbit]

All LH had to do was say "minimum fuel". To which ATC would be obliged to ask them for fuel remaining in minutes. Some sort of expedited sequencing should have then followed. Drama over. A few big egos on the radio here.

Don’t know if this is a US/UK thing, but that’s pretty much the opposite of what should happen over here, and I think the rest of Europe, when someone declares “minimum fuel”. If a pilot declares it, we’re to give them an updated delay/EAT/track mileage, and at this point no expedited sequencing whatsoever. It’s up to the pilot on being given the updated mileage/delay to declare an emergency if necessary, at which point the priority kicks in. The DLH was told 10 minute at one point, seemingly 14 minutes later from what the video shows, the DLH pilot is trying to get an update and the controller refuses to pass it.

As Paxboy said, the odd part is why this was an issue for this specific flight, and not before or since that we know of.

[megan]

32 years ago LAX, 737 meets Metroliner..

https://simpleflying.com/los-angeles-runway-disaster-anniversary/

[Capn Bloggs]

If it's saturated, SFO isn't going to shut down the stream to the parallel runway and slow his own down just so Lufthansa can have his ILS.

​​​​​​​And how do we even know this established international carrier captain is even well-versed in his own Company's SOPs? After all and I may be wrong, but I doubt the Lufthansa Radiotelephony Phraseology Section of their RT SOPs has the note: "Don't say "F***" on the radio, except when outside EASA Airspace".
As expected. :rolleyes:​​​​​​​

[a350pilots]

Unprofessional swearing language from the pilots to start with.

[Flyhighfirst]

Which bit is ridiculous? The Lufty rules or the US ATC rules?

That was just pure spiteful punishment on the controllers part.

[Flyhighfirst]

San Francisco's runway 28L and 28R centerlines are 750' apart, so aircraft affirming they can maintain visual separation is the only way they can conduct simultaneous, parallel approaches, and it's not as haphazard as "doing Sight and Follow" either day or night: The aircraft in both streams are assigned altitudes, speeds for in-trail separation, and vectored up until final approach intercept in the same manner as one would be for an ILS. ATC usually feed them onto the final approach so they come down in slightly staggered pairs within easy sight of each other. In visual conditions and /w TCAS, it's an easy task to see who you're following and who you're forming-up with on the parallel runway. Also, in FAA-land even while on an instrument flight plan including the instrument approach, in Visual Meteorological Conditions the crew is still responsible for maintaining a visual watch to see and avoid other aircraft.

Which is where the "maintain visual separation" part comes in. In VMC, given the altitude, speed control for in-trail, and vectors to intercept final approach you'll receive from ATC, the only thing you're being asked to ensure is something you should, by regulation, be doing anyway; not overshooting your final turn and maintaining visual separation from the guy who's going to join the parallel final in case he does. This is done literally hundreds of times a day and night, weather permitting. There's an ILS LOC on each to back up the visual final, but obviously the focus during join-up is outside on the other aircraft.

Check Airman is correct. Somebody at a desk wrote an SOP not knowing that this common practice of "maintaining visual" exists for SFO due to the extra-close parallel runways, and when they have 100+ mile streams of inbound aircraft for 2 runways, upsetting the flow so 1 can shoot an ILS puts the airport into a single approach/runway operation, shutting the parallel down. Even if they did, being VMC they'd still have to look outside and watch for other aircraft. Their SOP does not relieve them of that responsibility.

The airport isn't going to prioritize or stuff-up their expeditious arrival flow for 1 Company's SOPs. I believe when the Controller asked Lufthansa not if he could "accept a visual approach" but rather "could he maintain visual separation" he was trying to help the guy out since the Controller knew he's required to do that anyway in VMC conditions. But then Lufthansa said that he couldn't even maintain visual separation, so his fate was sealed.

The strange thing is Lufthansa will have been doing this exact same flight at this time everyday for years! Unless this is a new policy how is it that this is the first instance this has happened?

[gearlever]

The strange thing is Lufthansa will have been doing this exact same flight at this time everyday for years! Unless this is a new policy how is it that this is the first instance this has happened?
How do you know this was the first instance?

[wondering]

Check Airman is correct. Somebody at a desk wrote an SOP not knowing that this common practice of "maintaining visual" exists for SFO due to the extra-close parallel runways, and when they have 100+ mile streams of inbound aircraft for 2 runways, upsetting the flow so 1 can shoot an ILS puts the airport into a single approach/runway operation, shutting the parallel down. Even if they did, being VMC they'd still have to look outside and watch for other aircraft. Their SOP does not relieve them of that responsibility.

SFO has PRM for busy times. Both runways would still be in use.

[wondering]

Ridiculous SOP at Lufthansa. You can't do a visual approach at night? That's absurd. The weather was fine. If fairness to the crew, they seem to have communicated their restriction immediately, but I also see the controller's viewpoint. He has 100 planes to get on the ground with tight spacing, and this heavy comes in and says he needs even more spacing than normal because of some stupid rule that an office-dweller came up with. You really cannot expect to operate into a busy US airport with that sort of restriction.

Maybe, LH did a risk-benefit/risk mitigation analysis and concluded it is safer not to do visuals at night? Or, LH may not have the FAA OpSpecs for night visuals in the US? Personally, I find it difficult to judge distances to other traffic and terrain/obstacles at night. But maybe that´s just me.

Crossair 3597 comes to mind, as well. Technically not a visual approach but the crew followed visual cues at night.

But yeah the PM´s cocky attitude seems to have aggravated the problem. There was a female voice later on. No idea if it was the F/O or PIC initially. I reckon, it comes down to leadership and CRM to avoid putting yourself in a disadvantaged position. I am sure the incidence will be a case study for LH and a subject during future CRM trainings.

[fdr]

Hmmm.

ATC is a service for the operation of the airport and aircraft. The PIC complied with his company policy, advised in a timely manner to ATC what his constraints were, and ATC acted to punish them for complying with their requirements. The wording by LH was not the best of grammar but I would share his sentiment. ATC action was not to give a service to the aircraft to comply with their operational requirements. This used to be a professional program with ATC and the flight crew aiming for the same outcome, in this case, the ATC acted to pressure the crew into breaching their SOPs in order to appease ATCs workload. Their "can't have this conversation" speaks loudly. SFO used to be a pretty reasonable place to operate in and out of, didn't seem to be on this day.

If ATC has an issue with a crew advising them of an operational requirement, we really need to rethink what we are trying to do here. It matters not at all if the night was a bombers moon and VFR, the operator has requirements that are in their OpSpec, that are approved by..... the FAA, so this is a lunacy that a C series OpSpec is being objected to by ATC in their actions. SFO is a mess for ATC flow control, but the crews questions on expected hold is what the FAA expects a crew to do, and has done since Avianca did some gardening in the backyard of John McEnroe's parents shack..

That was shabby, and the PIC did what he is required to do, colourful language notwithstanding.

Was more like what is expected from ATC out of JFK than SFO, but for JFK, the same stressors exist, really bad airspace design, and excessive traffic for the ATC to deal with.

[YRP]

Also, in FAA-land even while on an instrument flight plan including the instrument approach, in Visual Meteorological Conditions the crew is still responsible for maintaining a visual watch to see and avoid other aircraft.

I'm not sure that is strictly true. At least in Canada, ATC provides separation between IFR aircraft regardless of IMC/VMC. The visual watch is for VFR aircraft and there wouldn't be any in class B (SFO must be class B right?). This SFO parallel approach thing is a special requirement.

Does Lufthansa not normally arrive at night in SFO? This can't be the first time this has come up. It sounds like someone must have misunderstood the restriction. Or maybe it is something like not allowing the "maintain visual sep." with any cloud below 1000'.

[Jet Jockey A4]

Correct me if l’m wrong, but don’t you have to advise NORCAL like at least 100 miles out if you cannot do a PRM approach into SFO?

Knowing the restrictions into SFO even on VFR days, one would think that if your company’s SOP do not allow you to do visuals at night, then perhaps you should advise the controllers a lot earlier than the 40 miles LH mentioned it and more like 100 miles out so that they can sequence you better.

In any case the controller was imo a bit rude.

[FullWings]

Hmmm.

ATC is a service for the operation of the airport and aircraft. The PIC complied with his company policy, advised in a timely manner to ATC what his constraints were, and ATC acted to punish them for complying with their requirements. The wording by LH was not the best of grammar but I would share his sentiment. ATC action was not to give a service to the aircraft to comply with their operational requirements. This used to be a professional program with ATC and the flight crew aiming for the same outcome, in this case, the ATC acted to pressure the crew into breaching their SOPs in order to appease ATCs workload. Their "can't have this conversation" speaks loudly. SFO used to be a pretty reasonable place to operate in and out of, didn't seem to be on this day.

If ATC has an issue with a crew advising them of an operational requirement, we really need to rethink what we are trying to do here. It matters not at all if the night was a bombers moon and VFR, the operator has requirements that are in their OpSpec, that are approved by..... the FAA, so this is a lunacy that a C series OpSpec is being objected to by ATC in their actions. SFO is a mess for ATC flow control, but the crews questions on expected hold is what the FAA expects a crew to do, and has done since Avianca did some gardening in the backyard of John McEnroe's parents shack..

That was shabby, and the PIC did what he is required to do, colourful language notwithstanding.

Was more like what is expected from ATC out of JFK than SFO, but for JFK, the same stressors exist, really bad airspace design, and excessive traffic for the ATC to deal with.
That’s a really good set of observations. We (another large airline from the Europe area) can do visual approaches at night but with some pretty heavy restrictions. We are also not allowed to do circling approaches in the USA according to our OP-Spec, although we can do them anywhere else in the World.

I remember once making a visit to the tower in K??? with my manuals to explain why we couldn’t do 200kts to the marker on a 3.5deg NPA to a performance limiting runway in a MLW 777-300. Having laid out my case ATC were very understanding...

[Jump Complete]

I remember once making a visit to the tower in K??? with my manuals to explain why we couldn’t do 200kts to the marker on a 3.5deg NPA to a performance limiting runway in a MLW 777-300. Having laid out my case ATC were very understanding...

Not familiar with the Triple but 200kts to the marker on a 3.5deg NPA would definitely be tricky in a 737-800.

[WHBM]

Thank You - to PukinDog for referencing the Air Canada SFO very close call ("There's no one on Two-Eight Right but you") circa 2017.
Of course, if Air Canada had been given an ILS approach instead, that incident would not have happened ...

[Consol]

Not impressed by the ATC response but no angels here. A few points....

Non US operators are forbidden to do circling approaches in the US, LAHSO cannot be given. Various other restrictions in Ops Specs from FAA. It follows on that some have visual approach restrictions.

LH do lots of visual manoeuvres in FRA a la 25R so well able.

Someone in a LH ops office may have thought banning all visual approaches at night was a good idea (other operators restrict but mitigate such as when joining at/above MSA). Perhaps there should have been an exception for SFO/ visual seperation due to the normal operating criteria in SFO? Management desks do not have HUDs and some need to fly more.

F words are not optimum comms.

Over rigidity can cause you problems in the very fluid world of aviation (have had the MINUS TWO KNOTS!' called from Germanic FOs in a very stable approach. The above post about refusing to cross a clearly defective stop bar is evidence of a certain Teutonic trait. Did he intend to retire at same stop bar?

ATC does not have the jurisdiction to impose penal holding/vectors/go around. They are there to keep aircraft and it's crews and passengers safe.

No one's perfect. The guy in row 36 did not pay his fare for a big balls fight over the radio.

[Sailvi767]

My company forbids visual approaches at night unless there is an instrument approach that can back up the visual. Is it possible that is LH policy and there was confusion on the pilots part? It also sounds like the controller was going to work it out by granting the ILS but having LH report the parallel traffic in sight. Does LH policy forbid that? The last question is what is the max duty day for LH pilots on that flight. Looks like they were pushing 17 hours to get back to SFO.

[Veruka Salt]

That’s what I’m thinking too Salivi. The ‘visual’ part of the SFO approaches is really for traffic identification/separation purposes due narrow runway spacing (very well explained by earlier posters), but the lateral & vertical parts of the approach are LNAV/VNAV procedures extracted from the database. Flown just like an RNAV approach with terrain/airspace floor clearance assured. Even easier with ‘FLS’ on the 350. I think the 1st NorCal controller tried to help the crew out there. LH have been flying there a long time, so I’d be surprised if this wasn’t elaborated somewhere in their company pages.

[Kjeld]

LH do lots of visual manoeuvres in FRA a la 25R so well able.

Could it be that you are talking about the swing over from 25L to 25C? I understand that this a significantly different maneuver done after intercept already on the TWR frequency and no visual separation is required from the pilot.

[bean]

Of course, if Air Canada had been given an ILS approach instead, that incident would not have happened ...
Air Canada SOPs required the ILS to be tuned even during visual approaches. see page11 of the freely available NTSB report. this is common practice in airlines but was accidentally omitted by the FO. whether they were cleared for an ILS or not is irrelevant

[Capn Bloggs]

whether they were cleared for an ILS or not is irrelevant
Of course it's relevant! If they had been cleared for an ILS approach, the FO probably wouldn't have "accidentally omitted" to tune it. :rolleyes:

Added: it also makes you wonder what the captain was (not) doing if it was SOP to tune it on a Vis.

[Klimax]

Handled badly by both. If no vis app at night for them fine. It was communicated as such. ATC were less than accommodating by sending them to the hold. By that time both parties had become entrenched and then the crew threatened them with an an emergency call if ..... and what sounded like " and that will really **** up your...". To which ATC became more entrenched and invited them to call for a divert or shut up. All LH had to do was say "minimum fuel". To which ATC would be obliged to ask them for fuel remaining in minutes. Some sort of expedited sequencing should have then followed. Drama over. A few big egos on the radio here.

Heavy traffic arriving from an international long haul flight at night time, complying with sensible company procedures, and then being treated by ATC like this. I don´t see this as anything else but unprofessional and very inflexible by ATC - which I do not find common in the US of A in general. I commend the Lufthansa for not bending over to the economical pressure. I´m not sure what specific aircraft LH were operating on this sector, and they possible carried max load (cargo and fuel), but this reinstates the consideration of always carrying that extra bit of fuel - unless you want to extend your duty by 2 hours and see pax missing connecting flights etc.

[bean]

Of course it's relevant! If they had been cleared for an ILS approach, the FO probably wouldn't have "accidentally omitted" to tune it. :rolleyes:

Added: it also makes you wonder what the captain was (not) doing if it was SOP to tune it on a Vis.
No need for inverted commas. let us put it another way. The FO failed to follow SOP for a visual which was to tune the ILS the captain was PF If SOP had been followed the problem would not have occurred in spite of not having been cleared for an ILS

[DroneDog]

Thoroughly unprofessional ATC behaviour, both petty and childish. This is how accidents occur. The ATC is in the wrong job; he should be managing shopping carts at Walmart.

[old freightdog]

SFO has PRM for busy times. Both runways would still be in use.
The flight was 4 hours late.

[ATC Watcher]

Another typical example of why it was (still is imo) wrong to have 2 sets of rules when flying into the US .
ICAO main goal when created was to allow cross border seamless air traffic , with sets of rules valid for every country that signed up to its convention.
So, according ICAO if you file an IFR flight plan you expect an instrument arrival . ATC can propose but not force you to do a visual approach if you are on an IFR flight plan . . But it can delay / put you in the hold for separation / sequencing, but mot refusing you which is basically what happened here .

LH is right to demand an instrument APP , and ATC should have accommodated it. Now that said US controllers are trained according FAA rules which differ from ICAO . It not only visual approaches, also at night ,it is also LAHSO procedures for instance . All are typical US procedures and can be ( and are sometimes ) refused by non US airlines .
This know issue is not new and should definitively not be resolved on the frequencies.

What we see now in 2023 is pushing for more and more traffic into saturated airports suffering ATC staff shortages and bending the rules ro make it work .
This is going to end up badly .

[Flyhighfirst]

The flight was 4 hours late.

That is not going to be an uncommon experience though. They will have at least a few flights a month that may be delayed by that much.

[Check Airman]

SFO seems to have international traffic coming in at all hours of the day. As someone alluded to, DLH insisting on an ILS would have meant inconveniencing maybe a dozen other airplanes.



It seems better to have one plane holding somewhere than 12. They were asked to evacuate a visual approach in night VMC. Not an unreasonable request for the holder of an ATP. It’s San Francisco, not Innsbruck.



I’m not faulting the crew, they have to follow the SOP. It’s just a dumb SOP.

[blind pew]

Maybe, LH did a risk-benefit/risk mitigation analysis and concluded it is safer not to do visuals at night? Or, LH may not have the FAA OpSpecs for night visuals in the US? Personally, I find it difficult to judge distances to other traffic and terrain/obstacles at night. But maybe that´s just me.

Crossair 3597 comes to mind, as well. Technically not a visual approach but the crew followed visual cues at night.

But yeah the PM´s cocky attitude seems to have aggravated the problem. There was a female voice later on. No idea if it was the F/O or PIC initially. I reckon, it comes down to leadership and CRM to avoid putting yourself in a disadvantaged position. I am sure the incidence will be a case study for LH and a subject during future CRM trainings.

Croosair 3597 was having a guy in the LHS who wasn’t up to flying jets..iirc he was one of Moritz’s first pilots, had failed conversion onto the 146 twice and spent nearly 6 months line training before he passed his third shot not long before the accident..
Glad that I missed the red tape flying..we had final approach configuration selected by 400ft..stabilised by 300ft in practice and could “bend” the rules if we could demonstrate that it was “best use of équipement”. Those were the days where we understood airmanship.

[Capt Fathom]

Instead of forcing LH to Oakland, I’m sure a small delay for a few arrivals into SFO to accomodate them would not have been a great impost.
If I was LH, I would have just declared Mayday Fuel and landed at SFO.

[WHBM]

I’m not faulting the crew, they have to follow the SOP. It’s just a dumb SOP.
Well we know the USA does not have much regard for ILS. The Asiana accident report shows the ILS was out of action at San Francisco, both main landing runways at the same time, for three months, "for construction". The fact that the Asiana crew had hardly any experience of visual landings outside their Sim sessions shows there are few if any other administrations who might do this.

[meleagertoo]

So what happens at SFO if cloud prevents aircraft on approach from being visual with each other? Does the entire system grind to a halt because such a vast international airport can't cope with IFR arrivals? Sounds beyond belief.

[Chesty Morgan]

Appalling, inflexible, "service".

I think even Malaga ATC is better than this shower...whilst OJT!

[fdr]

Instead of forcing LH to Oakland, I’m sure a small delay for a few arrivals into SFO to accomodate them would not have been a great impost.
If I was LH, I would have just declared Mayday Fuel and landed at SFO.

This was not a Mayday situation and was managed in spite of the aggro to not become one.

The post flight report on this will be problematic enough for management of LH and for the SATCO, engineering a Mayday would not be received with amusement.

After a 4 hour delay to start with on a long flight, and 2 hours to turn around to swim across the ditch from oaktown to SFO, ATC managed to increase threats, not reduce them. They should look inwards and reflect on what their task actually is, being a hazard to flight is not normally included, that is optional.

[blind pew]

The answer is if Lufthansa are unable to comply with local procedures then SFO should initiate an approach ban on operators who cannot comply or withdraw their operating permit.
Had Frankfurt ignore approach sequencing so that LH could jump the queue including descending a 747 through our level in the hold which caused me to duck..complaint said 1000ft séparation my @rse.
Seem to remember that when Big Airlines lost a donk out of LAX and attempted to fly back to base only to get their knickers into a twist going into Manchester that the FAA invited them across the pond for a without tea and biscuits discussion.

[ATC Watcher]

The answer is if Lufthansa are unable to comply with local procedures then SFO should initiate an approach ban on operators who cannot comply or withdraw their operating permit .
Whow ! And on which legal basis could they do such thing ?
Is enforcing an IFR flight to perform visual apprach/separation at night an FAA mandatory published procedure ? or is it just another unwritten local capacity enhancement practice ?

[WillowRun 6-3]

Intending that another interruption (from SLF/attorney) of discussion by the pros will be tolerated, maybe even interesting.

How does the aftermath of this particular situation get worked out, if it ever does get worked out? Intuitively and by common sense an outside observer would think within FAA, and also up the reporting chain of the established international air carrier, reports filed by the participants (or supervisors) will express frustration that such a situation could occur. They'll cite different reasons depending on whose report it is, and neither ATC nor LH will think another instance of this sequence of events is one that should be just shrugged off, not anything worth doing something to solve or prevent. But my uneducated guess is, FAA has imposed certain rules, and if I get the flow of the discussion FAA would back the ATC actions (because it sees inconveniencing one flight operator as better than disrupting a lot more other operators). I won't guess about whether LH's SOP makes sense enough to warrant its imposition (SLF . . .).

But ATC Watcher points to ICAO as intended to create - though the post didn't use these exact words - complete uniformity, even on the level of operational procedures for approach and landing. That's an overstatement, though - ICAO was created and organized, and today it operates, to create and uphold standardization. The fact that "Differences" can be filed establishes that uniformity of procedural choices for operational matters wasn't and isn't what ICAO does. (During her stint as Secretary General of ICAO, Fang Liu repeatedly emphasized in remarks delivered to professional conferences that standardization, and not necessarily uniformity, is the objective.)

If the FAA's view of the operational procedures the ATCOs were following is incorrect, who is going to direct FAA to change things? - you would think LH would be entitled to some positive action about this type of situation. Germany hosted the (very large) AirDefender 2023 NATO aviation exercise last summer, and the EUROCONTROL Global Civil-Military Aviation Summit was held in Brussels during that exercise. One would think that, if LH deserves some positive action to prevent a recurrence, somebody in the vast U.S. Fed. Government would motivate change. (I'm not referring to ATCO attitude or manners, just the facts or operating procedures.) And this even despite the more than a little inconvenient fact that United States at present does not have a Permanent Rep at ICAO and there appears zero prospect of the current administration presenting a nominee to the Senate.

[jetpig32]

1) SFO no longer conducts PRM due staffing, training, reduced offset separation. They do, however so “close space parallel runway” ops. That requires 2 straight in approaches with 1nm “stagger”, heavy always trails. See
https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/JO_7110.308E_Simultaneous_Dependent_Approaches_to_CSPR.pdf

2) IFR stagger, even in VMC, (vs visual “sideby”reduces arrival rate from 54 to 45.

3) the 8p-10p arrival “bank” is scheduled to the max. miles in trail sequencing for the 28R steam begins almost 1hr out with salt lake center.

4) back to note 1, even with reduced stagger at 1mi, departures off of 1L, 1R, are affected as the “gap” to launch departures is smaller, slowing ops tempo.

[43102]

Makes you wonder what Lufthansa have been doing every other time they've operated into SFO at night.

[Sailvi767]

So what happens at SFO if cloud prevents aircraft on approach from being visual with each other? Does the entire system grind to a halt because such a vast international airport can't cope with IFR arrivals? Sounds beyond belief.

It doesn’t grind to a halt but it slows way down. The closer in domestic flights are ground stopped with some cancels and most regional jet flights are simply canceled. That provides the cushion needed to bring the international flights in.

[Sailvi767]

The most curious aspect is that - LH operate into SFO every day and have done so for decades. Unless it was brand new, their SOP would have been understood and part of the system.

They were probably assigned the quiet bridge visual. This is a published procedure which is built into the FMS and uses the localizer. If every airline refused I suspect they would need to cut the arrival rate by 30% at night.

[CW247]

The US understanding of visual approaches speeding up arrivals is a bit flawed. Lining up a stream of visual traffic is no different to lining up a stream of ILS traffic if done properly. This is simply ATC being lazy and passing the buck.
Also, US controllers don't understand that pilots arriving from Europe are doing their approaches in survival mode with very little room for acrobatics. A night visual is not a healthy way to land a widebody given awake times of 16-18 hours.

[Liffy 1M]

The flight was 4 hours late.

It had an STD of 1620 and was airborne at 1830 - probably a bit less than two hours late, allowing for taxi time at MUC. https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/lh458#3275cdb3

Same flight on other days: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/lh458

[Check Airman]

Well we know the USA does not have much regard for ILS. The Asiana accident report shows the ILS was out of action at San Francisco, both main landing runways at the same time, for three months, "for construction". The fact that the Asiana crew had hardly any experience of visual landings outside their Sim sessions shows there are few if any other administrations who might do this.

Of all the factors to be blamed for that, the lack of an ILS shouldn’t be one. If you can’t execute a straight in visual approach, the ILS isn’t at fault. Reminiscent of the bad workman quarrelling with his tools…

[Check Airman]

So what happens at SFO if cloud prevents aircraft on approach from being visual with each other? Does the entire system grind to a halt because such a vast international airport can't cope with IFR arrivals? Sounds beyond belief.

I’d assume they’d revert to instrument approaches, which would slow the arrival rate.

[Check Airman]

The US understanding of visual approaches speeding up arrivals is a bit flawed. Lining up a stream of visual traffic is no different to lining up a stream of ILS traffic if done properly. This is simply ATC being lazy and passing the buck.
Also, US controllers don't understand that pilots arriving from Europe are doing their approaches in survival mode with very little room for acrobatics. A night visual is not a healthy way to land a widebody given awake times of 16-18 hours.

Not sure if you’ve ever done the approach in question to SFO, but I’d hardly call a visual approach “acrobatics”.

Also, do we know how many pilots were on board? I gather many EU operators come to the east coast of the US with only 2 pilots. I imagine a flight to sfo would have at least 3 pilots, so everyone would’ve had a chance to rest. It’s not like they were asked to fly a circling approach at minima after operating for 12 hours.

To your first point, it’s not about lazy controllers. The separation requirement is reduced for visual approaches, so by doing visuals, ATC can provide service to a greater number of customers.

Would you rather do a visual approach (in nice weather on a nice night) or hold for half an hour waiting to do an ILS?

[Kjeld]

What I really don’t get in this whole US Airports optimization via visual separation strategy:
there are official definitions for radar separation. They were designed for a reason. They are being used to set airports capacities all over the world.
is it really prudent to increase capacity by saying that aircraft will not be separated via radar but have to do it themselves?
just the idea of doing parallel approaches on an airport that is not designed for that seems scary for me (as a non professional pilot)

[Sailvi767]

The US understanding of visual approaches speeding up arrivals is a bit flawed. Lining up a stream of visual traffic is no different to lining up a stream of ILS traffic if done properly. This is simply ATC being lazy and passing the buck.
Also, US controllers don't understand that pilots arriving from Europe are doing their approaches in survival mode with very little room for acrobatics. A night visual is not a healthy way to land a widebody given awake times of 16-18 hours.

With the runway spacing at SFO doing visuals increases the arrival capacity substantially. Even at other airports visuals increase arrival rate as it allows for reduced spacing. As far as the SFO approach it’s a charted visual to intercept the ILS. The entire approach can be done on autopilot and is basically exactly the same as flying the instrument version. There is one difference. You have to report the traffic to the parallel runway in sight. If LH feels that difference is unacceptable then they need to evaluate their service to SFO.

[stilton]

The US understanding of visual approaches speeding up arrivals is a bit flawed. Lining up a stream of visual traffic is no different to lining up a stream of ILS traffic if done properly. This is simply ATC being lazy and passing the buck.
Also, US controllers don't understand that pilots arriving from Europe are doing their approaches in survival mode with very little room for acrobatics. A night visual is not a healthy way to land a widebody given awake times of 16-18 hours.


Yet somehow widebody operators flew the checkerboard approach into Kai Tak, in all sorts of weather transitioning to a pure visual at low level after such long flight times, a far more challenging approach by any measure ‘acrobatics’ seriously?


This visual approach into SFO has lateral and vertical guidance provided by LNAV / VNAV, if LH decided it’s outside their pilots capabilities to look out the window to spot other aircraft ATC points out to them they should consider whether they want to continue service there


Why should they get special treatment? No other operators are demanding this, not sure how they thought swearing at the controller would help them, that was highly unprofessional, LH sops are the source of the problem here but this pilot made things much worse with his attitude and made a diversion inevitable

Im surprised the controller didn’t tell him to squawk VFR, radar service terminated

[Denti]

From what i understand from my friends in Lufty they have no restriction on flying visual approaches at night, unlike other german airlines, in my previous one there was a blanket ban on it and we had no problem flying into SFO with that. However, they are not allowed to use visual separation from other traffic at night, which can be done independently of the approach type flown.

To me as an outsider it looks like the type of approach is not the problem, it is the transferring of responsibility in regards to traffic separation from ATC to flight crew which seems to be the issue.

[Check Airman]

https://youtu.be/4zHxdn8oz20

Follow-up video with a controller’s comments. It wasn’t the controller from the original video, but an excellent analysis from the ATC perspective.

[Fursty Ferret]

Published visual approach charts.

Identifying some of the landmarks on these charts is difficult enough during the day, let alone at night. Given it's such a noise-sensitive area I'm always surprised that SFO hasn't been at the forefront of implementing RNP-AR approaches.

[Check Airman]

SFO is noise sensitive? Didn’t know that.

[Capn Bloggs]

SFO is noise sensitive? Didn’t know that.
Why else would the Quiet Bridge be cranked 9° off the CL (with no published waypoints)?

​​​​​​​NOISE SENSITIVE ARPT; FOR NOISE ABATEMENT PROCEDURES CTC ARPT NOISE OFFICE MON-FRI 0800-1700 BY CALLING 650-821-5100.

​​​​​​​This visual approach into SFO has lateral and vertical guidance provided by LNAV / VNAV
No waypoints on the FAA chat that I can see for the QB... I can understand LH not wanting to do a visual at night based (what's not) on the chart.

​​​​​​​Yet somehow widebody operators flew the checkerboard approach into Kai Tak, in all sorts of weather transitioning to a pure visual at low level after such long flight times, a far more challenging approach by any measure ‘acrobatics’ seriously?
Get out of the dark ages. Do you seriously think that that approach would be allowed now? For goodness sake...

[BBK]

Presumably the traffic going into SFO are filing IFR flight plans. If SFO cannot offer an instrument approach then maybe they should advise if unable visual to add X minutes of holding fuel. I can see it makes sense to expedite traffic flow when it’s VMC but the problem seems, to me at least, that it is entirely reasonable for an operator to specify no visual approaches at night unless specific rules are in place. Just like foreign operators don’t conduct LAHSO. Similarly the circling protected area is larger under ICAO then TERPS. Different jurisdictions have different standards.

Also, I was under the impression that after the Asiana accident that foreign carriers wouldn’t be expected to fly visual approaches? It would be fascinating to visit NORCAL and understand the challenges they face and equally to impress on them that at the end of a long day asking a crew to maintain separation based on visual acquisition at night isn’t ideal.

Lastly, I think both parties in this particular incident used inappropriate language. We’re on the same side or at least should be!

[ATC Watcher]

Im surprised the controller didn’t tell him to squawk VFR, radar service terminated
Can you do that in the US ? Just curious. In ICAO land , which is basically the rest of the world, only the PIC can cancel IFR , never the controller.

Just checked with a colleague flying for LH on 747s: Denti is correct , the “daylight only” SOP restriction is not about visual approches but visual acquisition of other traffic .
Has apparently never been a real issue before probably because normal LH OPS to SFO are daylight.

Looks like this time some people became or were inflexible , the tone and language used did not help either .
As safety was never impaired I am even not sure the FAA will investigate . A diversion is not an incident , although DLH might see it differently .
.

[TopBunk]

Forgive me here. I'm 14 years retired from a large European operator and operated regularly into many US airports(incl SFO) as Captain of a B747-400.

In my day, iirc, all European operators declined to be part of the LAHSO procedures, and I believe that was annotated in the FPL remarks.

It would seem that this could be a way of giving advance notification of Lufty's restrictions - no visual approaches at night, or some such?

[Sailvi767]

Identifying some of the landmarks on these charts is difficult enough during the day, let alone at night. Given it's such a noise-sensitive area I'm always surprised that SFO hasn't been at the forefront of implementing RNP-AR approaches.

It’s a charted procedure in the FMS! There are no landmarks you need to find other than the runway. It’s hard to miss that at night. It’s flown just like an instrument approach. It’s a very easy and benign charted visual compared to some other airports like LGA and DCA. The ILS is available for glideslope and FMS for lateral.

[YRP]

Yet somehow widebody operators flew the checkerboard approach into Kai Tak, in all sorts of weather transitioning to a pure visual at low level after such long flight times, a far more challenging approach by any measure ‘acrobatics’ seriously?

Back then pilots were real pilots (and for fans of Douglas Adams, small furry creatures were real ...).

[jetpig32]

Identifying some of the landmarks on these charts is difficult enough during the day, let alone at night. Given it's such a noise-sensitive area I'm always surprised that SFO hasn't been at the forefront of implementing RNP-AR approaches.

they have rnp-ar to 28r. The visuals are now rnav visuals and selectable from fmc.

[Gizm0]

Can you do that in the US ? Just curious. In ICAO land , which is basically the rest of the world, only the PIC can cancel IFR , never the controller.

Just checked with a colleague flying for LH on 747s: Denti is correct , the “daylight only” SOP restriction is not about visual approches but visual acquisition of other traffic .
Has apparently never been a real issue before probably because normal LH OPS to SFO are daylight.

Looks like this time some people became or were inflexible , the tone and language used did not help either .
As safety was never impaired I am even not sure the FAA will investigate . A diversion is not an incident , although DLH might see it differently .
.
You are correct. Only the aircraft commander can cancel IFR - a very sensible internationally observed rule that avoids confusion & emphasises the fact that only the commander is the ultimate boss. Also there are many airlines with SOP's that prohibit VFR at night (obviously very different to VMC). Again this can be a quite sensible rule - depending upon the operator / destination - but varying its actual implementation in differing circumstances means it is easier & more practical for many airlines' SOPs to just ban VFR at night - and you cannae blame the [any] commander for saying just that. It would seem that SFO needs more consultation (CRM if you like!) and to behave in a less aggressive "you do it our way sonny - or else" attitude: unfortunately a trait within the USA that seems to be growing. As such it is unhealthy. There can be no excuse for the unprofessional manner exhibited here. If this industry is to stay safe & respected then this sort of attitude must be eradicated.

[BFSGrad]

Lastly, I think both parties in this particular incident used inappropriate language.
I think the adverse reaction to the language in this incident is overblown. Due to the initial transmission being blocked, it’s not clear if the controller even comprehended LH’s F-bomb. And the F-bomb was clearly not directed at the controller. The analysis in post #71 indicates that the FAA management at NORCAL had no issue with the controller’s language or procedures.

I think LH’s F-bomb and “Ha!” interjection were indicative of his embarrassment and frustration in having to publicly declare that, as an international captain flying a state-of-the-art airliner, he was not allowed to execute a procedure that virtually every other arrival into SFO was safely executing. And to cap it off, he is then left to publicly divert to the inferior of the cesspool of San Francisco.

[stilton]

It’s telling that a few weeks ago there was much outrage that a Delta 767 ‘declared an emergency’ after experiencing an engine failure departing a European airport instead of stating ‘Mayday’



Fine, if you want to make that point, then you have to comply with the specific requirements when operating into a U.S. airport or end service to that destination


Pretty simple

[sb_sfo]

ATC Watcher
LH has 2 flights to SFO daily. LH458 is scheduled to land today at 1905 local, which will make it a night arrival for the next 4 months or so.

[davidkong]

ATC job is to provide a service to all aircraft that operate in any airspace throughout the World. This is a service provider not providing said services. The small minded controller needs a career change.

[davidkong]

On handover to the tower controller the other morning at JFK International airport. The approach controller told me to call New York Tower on the appropriate frequency. I followed the instructions and called New York Tower. We received stone cold silence. I reconfirmed the frequency from my chart and noted that the tower callsign was in fact Kennedy Tower. Frequency was correct. Kennedy Tower call sign was used. This time we received a child like reply. " What do you want?" No identification.... Reported established on the ILS approach for 33R. The next reply was again unprofessional and childish. In 32 years of flying I have never experienced such unprofessional controlling.

New York/JFK controllers have a horrible reputation. Obviously the selection criteria for these controllers is substandard.

[Check Airman]

I can see it makes sense to expedite traffic flow when it’s VMC but the problem seems, to me at least, that it is entirely reasonable for an operator to specify no visual approaches at night unless specific rules are in place.

Maybe it’s because I’m accustomed to it, but I find that entirely unreasonable. If you can’t fly a visual approach at night, you can’t operate into a busy US airport year round.

From where I sit, European pilots seem pretty reluctant to do visuals. Why is that?

[Uplinker]

.......Why should they get special treatment? No other operators are demanding this, not sure how they thought swearing at the controller would help them, that was highly unprofessional, LH sops are the source of the problem here but this pilot made things much worse with his attitude and made a diversion inevitable......

ATC are there to help and assist aircraft, so if someone needs a different approach, that should be granted, as indeed the SFO ATC did. My reading of this is that it started entirely reasonably, with the LH stating their restriction and ATC agreeing to facilitate that request, but they would have to hold until a suitable gap could be found in the inbound sequence. So far so good. Then it seems that the LH started getting arsey, complaining about having to wait longer than 10 mins. At this point ATC basically said if you want an ILS you will have to wait, if you don't want to wait, you will have to go to your alternate, which sounds reasonable to me. Given this LH company imposed restriction at SFO, and knowing about procedures at SFO, one would imagine that their flights there would take extra holding fuel, just in case. This LH clearly hadn't, and they sounded quite arrogant to me, which unsurprisingly annoyed ATC, who then refused to continue what was turning into an argument.

Going “visual” at night is an oxymoron surely?

If you think this, how do you ever land at night ?! On clear nights we can see the runway from miles away. Maintaining separation from a very close parallel approach at night is not so easy, hence, presumably, the Lufthansa restriction - probably made by their flight safety team, not just 'some bloke in an office'. :)

[blind pew]

50 years ago we sometimes had an hour plus holding into Heathrow, partly due to SOP of being fully established in landing configuration and speed by 3,000 ft..continuous descents and maintain 180 knots to the marker were introduced which many found unable to comply with..eventually this was accepted as was land after clearances. At the same time others could manage the Kai Tak and Gibraltar round the rock avoiding smoky joe approaches. Education and the introduction is wide bodies changed things.
Fortunately my next flag carrier operated into a lot of unusual places where electricity had only recently been discovered and by extensive training with high standards and a sensible approach to SOP we were able to operate into airfields which some would say was imprudent.
Sadly, imho, training and piloting skills along with common sense have been replaced by automatics, acars and the replacement of “captaincy” in some airlines.
Watching the video presentation I agree that nobody did anything wrong..it’s just the obvious evolution of the system with the loss of the skill set to fly an aircraft manually and look out of the window..maybe a few minutes on oxygen during descent might have helped but that is probably verboten now.

[megan]

It’s a charted procedure in the FMS! There are no landmarks you need to find other than the runway. It’s hard to miss that at night. It’s flown just like an instrument approach. It’s a very easy and benign charted visual compared to some other airports like LGA and DCA. The ILS is available for glideslope and FMS for lateral
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/591x891/ab283_e855d4fd964dc63bc368d7109104da74b4d7aa97.png
SLF when it comes to airline ops but it sounds very much, in my humble opinion, to a management pilot who is unfamiliar with local procedures and using his management status to brow beat ATC. I say "unfamiliar with procedures" because if it was the airlines requirement ATC would have been familiar with it, LH has been operating there for considerable time, unless it was recently introduced, in which case it hadn't been adequately communicated. On the other hand perhaps the ATC was new to the position and not up to speed with LH unique requirement.

Unable to see LH's problem given the chart.

[Check Airman]

If you think this, how do you ever land at night ?! On clear nights we can see the runway from miles away. Maintaining separation from a very close parallel approach at night is not so easy, hence, presumably, the Lufthansa restriction - probably made by their flight safety team, not just 'some bloke in an office'. :)

I haven't been to SFO in a while, but from what I recall, this approach is as easy as it gets. Keeping the other plane in sight isn't necessarily hard either. You're given speeds to fly, and then they basically tell the bigger plane not to overtake the smaller one on the parallel. To your point, there's nothing inherently unsafe about a visual approach. If that were true, you'd also have to ban flight into IMC.

[Capn Bloggs]

They were probably assigned the quiet bridge visual. This is a published procedure which is built into the FMS and uses the localizer.
No it doesn't. It's at least 6° off the LLZ.

As far as the SFO approach it’s a charted visual to intercept the ILS.
No it doesn't.

​​​​​​​It’s a charted procedure in the FMS!
Let's see it.

​​​​​​​The ILS is available for glideslope and FMS for lateral.
What could possibly go wrong with that! Accident report: Crew were flying in LNAV and using VS to control the vertical path to follow the GS because the QB is offset from the LLZ. Nice.

[Capn Bloggs]

they basically tell the bigger plane not to overtake the smaller one on the parallel.
Do you have any idea about how jets fly down final? Do you think we can just speed up or slow down willy-nilly so we "don't overtake the other one"?

[Check Airman]

Do you have any idea about how jets fly down final? Do you think we can just speed up or slow down willy-nilly so we "don't overtake the other one"?

As I've done that approach a few times before, I'd say I'm reasonably familiar with it. Are you? I've never had to do anything crazy. Have you never flown an approach with reference to another airplane?

[Check Airman]

What could possibly go wrong with that! Accident report: Crew were flying in LNAV and using VS to control the vertical path to follow the GS because the QB is offset from the LLZ. Nice.

Using VS to help you while on a localiser isn't actually difficult. I'm a bit concerned/confused here. Are you saying that anything other than a straight-in ILS that's aligned with the runway presents some sort of threat?

[Capn Bloggs]

Using VS to help you while on a localiser isn't actually difficult.
Who said anything about being on the LLZ? Look at the chart, for goodness sake. The LLZ is way off the "RNAV" QB track. I'm beginning to think that you have done nothing like this in a jet.

​​​​​​​As I've done that approach a few times before
How many times in a high-capacity RPT jet?

​​​​​​​I'm a bit concerned/confused here
Agree.

​​​​​​​Are you saying that anything other than a straight-in ILS that's aligned with the runway presents some sort of threat?
Well der, obviously! That's what the whole topic is about. I give up.

[Verbal Kint]

Bloggs,

I’ve done the approach countless times in the 737, & a few times in the 350. It’s not complicated, & Salivi/Airman have described it well. LNAV/VNAV it all the way (or FLS on the bus). On the 28R side I may arm APP after the final RNAV waypoint, or more likely click everything off & just fly it. If I think of it next time I’m at work, I’ll load it in the FMC to show you how it looks.

The speed control aspect is no big deal either - fly your assigned speed (typically 170 to 5), & don’t overtake traffic on the parallel.

The approach chart Megan posted doesn’t make it clear that the approaches DO intercept the LOC late on the arrival; I’ll post the Jepp chart next time I’m near my work iPad.

[Check Airman]

Who said anything about being on the LLZ? Look at the chart, for goodness sake. The LLZ is way off the "RNAV" QB track. I'm beginning to think that you have done nothing like this in a jet.

The RNAV visual has a pretty easy to follow FMS procedure. Load it and off you go. Even if you wanted to fly the procedure that was shown, it's not really hard...

How many times in a high-capacity RPT jet?

Not sure what that is, but a few times in an A321. Incidentally, every time was at night. Again...pretty unremarkable approach.

Agree.


Well der, obviously! That's what the whole topic is about. I give up.

If you need to fly a straight in ILS every time, how'd you manage to survive in a piston? If you're cleared for a visual abeam the field at 3000ft in your current plane, are we to expect a 10 mile final? Have you ever flown into JFK and done the canarsie approach? The Light visual to Boston? How about the circling approach into TGU?

Are these dangerous approaches that only the Atlantic Barons are capable of flying, or should any competent professional pilot be able to execute them? The approach into SFO is considerably easier than all of the above. I suspect you'd also consider me dangerous, as my last landing was a night time visual, sans automation.

[Capt Fathom]

This has got nothing to do with anyone's ability to fly a visual approach. It's about maintaining your own separation from other aircraft visually at night. The SFO metar at that time was FEW 500, SCT 700.
I can understand LH reluctance to follow anyone in. They went to Oakland.

[Check Airman]

This has got nothing to do with anyone's ability to fly a visual approach. It's about maintaining your own separation from other aircraft visually at night. The SFO metar at that time was FEW 500, SCT 700.
I can understand LH reluctance to follow anyone in. They went to Oakland.

I think the 2 layers you mentioned were less of a factor than they would appear for 2 reasons:

1. The METAR is just a snapshot. The conditions could've improved quite a bit since the observation, or really weren't that bad to begin with.

2. Other planes seem to have been getting in just fine. If the clouds were a factor, they wouldn't be doing visuals. People would be complaining, and they'd switch to the ILS.

If you read what the NORCAL controller wrote above, they weren't trying to be difficult, but having a heavy need an ILS in that particular situation was almost as disruptive as needing to use the opposite direction runway- they'll accommodate you if you need it, but there's going to be a delay. For the record, given the situation they were in, I'd probably have diverted to OAK as well.

Again, I'm not faulting the crew for following their SOP, but the SOP prevented them from executing a perfectly mundane approach that is safely done by hundreds of airplanes every day.

[cessnaxpilot]

Handled badly by both. If no vis app at night for them fine. It was communicated as such. ATC were less than accommodating by sending them to the hold. By that time both parties had become entrenched and then the crew threatened them with an an emergency call if ..... and what sounded like " and that will really **** up your...". To which ATC became more entrenched and invited them to call for a divert or shut up. All LH had to do was say "minimum fuel". To which ATC would be obliged to ask them for fuel remaining in minutes. Some sort of expedited sequencing should have then followed. Drama over. A few big egos on the radio here.

exactly

[West Coast]

Not sure what STAR Lufthansa was on, but typically by the time I am assigned a heading to depart a WP on, I’m on the second NCT controller. I’d be curious if Lufthansa on initial contact with the first NCT controller advised them of their inability to fly the visual. Assuming Visuals, charted visuals and FMS visual were being advertised on the ATIS, Lufthansa had plenty of advance notice. If they hadn’t mentioned it till what’s heard on the recording, well that handcuffs the controller as the spacing needed to be established significantly earlier.

[Chesty Morgan]

From where I sit, European pilots seem pretty reluctant to do visuals. Why is that?

Funny. I've never heard any US based carrier do a visual anywhere in Europe.

Familiarity is probably your answer.

[Bogner]

This has got nothing to do with anyone's ability to fly a visual approach. It's about maintaining your own separation from other aircraft visually at night.

^ This!!
Maintaining visual separation during the day is hard enough, it's not really possible at night. It sometimes seems a controller gets themselves into to a situation they can't be arsed sorting so just want to divulge themselves of any responsibility instead of sorting it.

I've had similar before stateside:
- Are you visual with the airport?
- Negative
- Are you visual with the aircraft ahead?
- Affirm.
- Follow them to the airport!
- ...

It may be the way it's done there, but it's not appropriate, in my opinion, for busy airspace at an international airport.
How do you even know that the aircraft/light you eyeball is the one they intend.

[FullWings]

2. Other planes seem to have been getting in just fine. If the clouds were a factor, they wouldn't be doing visuals. People would be complaining, and they'd switch to the ILS.
After several decades of flying in and out of the US, I can testify that that is not always the case. For whatever reason, quite a lot of pilots seem to want to declare that they’re visual, even though they can’t see the airport, the ground or even more than 100 yards in front of them. Maybe it’s peer pressure, or it means they can do their own thing, but I hear it used a lot in definite IMC.

As far as following aircraft at night, you can do it, but assessing distance is more difficult than during the day; yes you can use the TCAS display but in a high-density environment with poor azimuth resolution, it’s easy to pick the wrong target, and it’s not exactly an SOP either (definitely not for LH!)

Being an occasional visitor to SFO I can see both sides but if an aircraft is unable to do a visual procedure, for whatever reason, then ATC should give them an instrument approach, barring unserviceability, as they are on an IFR flight plan.

[Uplinker]

Which ATC did, but unfortunately the LH had forgotten to load extra holding fuel for contingencies. They could have committed to SFO, (two runways, good weather), and used their alternate fuel for holding, but if their alternate was Oakland, that would have been very little extra fuel.

And the LH crew's attitude stinks. My guess is the Captain realised they had screwed up the fuel load, but instead of eating humble pie, they tried to bully ATC into holding a lot of other inbound aircraft just to let the LH in. So the LH cost their company a lot of money. Tea and biscuits with the Chief pilot when they get home, no doubt.

SFO ATC 1 : Lufthansa crew 0

[172_driver]

From where I sit, European pilots seem pretty reluctant to do visuals. Why is that?

Fear of the unknown? Not many larger airports in Europe operate visuals and often they’re banned. Unlike the US (I have flown on both sides) ATC cannot waive radar separation when you report traffic in sight. It seems instead they’re squeezing traffic with accurate radars. I think LHR is allowed 2,5 nm separation? Wake separation can be more restrictive but if you’ve got a series of MEDIUMs (no specific wake separation) you can squeeze them pretty tight too. Any ATC guy, please correct me if I am wrong. My knowledge may be outdated as I think time is now a parameter in maintaining separation??

Apart from above, I am afraid to report that the profession has moved away from piloting to system management. That horse has been beaten to death many times! I am glad to work for an airline encouraging visuals and manual flying. That said, a visual approach and maintaining visual separation may be perceived as two completely different things. In the former, the airspace is yours and you can wiggle your way down as you like. In the later, they pass over some traditional ATC stuff to you, the pilot, in a busy airspace. SoCal and NorCal can be exhausting for someone not used to the pace.

[Uplinker]

But it's not up to us if our company flight safety department forbids it under certain circumstances. They have done the risk assessment.

[Request Orbit]

Which ATC did, but unfortunately the LH had forgotten to load extra holding fuel for contingencies. They could have committed to SFO, (two runways, good weather), and used their alternate fuel for holding, but if their alternate was Oakland, that would have been very little extra fuel.

And the LH crew's attitude stinks. My guess is the Captain realised they had screwed up the fuel load, but instead of eating humble pie, they tried to bully ATC into holding a lot of other inbound aircraft just to let the LH in. So the LH cost their company a lot of money. Tea and biscuits with the Chief pilot when they get home, no doubt.

SFO ATC 1 : Lufthansa crew 0

The way I heard it the DLH pilot was expecting some delay and didn’t quibble when told 10 mins. From the video timeline, 14 mins later they’ve not had an update and the controller refuses to entertain that “conversation” at all. How is the DLH supposed to know if they have enough holding fuel if the controller can’t(/wont) provide a vaguely accurate delay? Admittedly I’ve only watched the YT video so might have missed relevant transmissions.

[BBK]

On the subject of holding I listened to the RT again and I think I understand the LH crew’s frustration. Happy to be corrected if I’ve misheard it but what I believe LH says is something to the effect that “you told me ten minutes holding and that expired four minutes ago”. Later the control says they can expect a further 10-15 minutes. Perhaps if the LH mental model was ten minutes being stretched to half an hour then his irritation is understandable. Incidentally I still think both he and the controller used inappropriate language.

The other thing I don’t believe has been discussed is the time of day as it relates to the crew. I believe someone upthread said this occurred around 19:00 local? If that was the case then it would be 04:00 at their home base and so they would have flown through (in) the window of circadian low (WOCL). Even the most cheerful crew could be forgiven for being a little tetchy at that time of the day!

Lastly, I doubt anyone in this discussion knows the details of the fuel plan so I won’t pass judgment of whether they had enough.

[22/04]

It's just chalk and cheese. I have said before the U.S relies on visual approaches and separation but this is rare in Europe, where the radar controller is almost always responsible for separation. Radar CONTROL service in the U.K. The radar controller achieves this in a number of ways - if the runway in use is also being used for departures they will liaise tower to achieve spacing. If not it is usually achieved by speed control - maintain 160 knots between nine and five miles- for example.

I can't work out whether the U S just likes it the way it is, the traffic is too heavy to do things the way they are done in Europe or what. The advent of Live ATC enables me to listen to US controllers - To my U K ear it often sounds like things are not really controlled at all. There are advantages - GA traffic would never be able to access all the airspace here it can in the U S here for example.

[Uplinker]

The way I heard it the DLH pilot was expecting some delay and didn’t quibble when told 10 mins. From the video timeline, 14 mins later they’ve not had an update and the controller refuses to entertain that “conversation” at all. How is the DLH supposed to know if they have enough holding fuel if the controller can’t(/wont) provide a vaguely accurate delay?

Yep, could be.

I think though that if the LH crew had been a bit more professional and less confrontational, then they would have probably had a much better outcome.

Saying something like "Roger - just for your sequence planning; we have x minutes of holding fuel before we will need to divert" would probably have got a better response.

Having instead used the F word and cowboy sounding Ha !, and "what is the problem" etc., very quickly put them to the bottom of the ATC priority pile.

It's basic human nature: If you want someone to help you and cooperate with you, don't come heavy handed or swear at them.

If your neighbour said "if you don't move your car it's going to f**k up your day", it would instantly put you into fight mode and much less likely help them, than if they said "hello mate; is there any chance of moving your car a bit?"

[West Coast]

After several decades of flying in and out of the US, I can testify that that is not always the case. For whatever reason, quite a lot of pilots seem to want to declare that they’re visual, even though they can’t see the airport, the ground or even more than 100 yards in front of them. Maybe it’s peer pressure, or it means they can do their own thing, but I hear it used a lot in definite IMC.



Being an occasional visitor to SFO I can see both sides but if an aircraft is unable to do a visual procedure, for whatever reason, then ATC should give them an instrument approach, barring unserviceability, as they are on an IFR flight plan.

Never have I felt pressure, either internal nor external pressure to report the airport in sight. Being asked if the airport is in sight is not the same as being pressured.

Agree, if you can’t fly the visual, you can’t fly the visual. You also have the responsibility to let ATC know in a timely manner. Timely wouldn’t be when you’re just a few minutes from landing and the spacing and separation is already set.

[Request Orbit]

It's just chalk and cheese. I have said before the U.S relies on visual approaches and separation but this is rare in Europe, where the radar controller is almost always responsible for separation. Radar CONTROL service in the U.K. The radar controller achieves this in a number of ways - if the runway in use is also being used for departures they will liaise tower to achieve spacing. If not it is usually achieved by speed control - maintain 160 knots between nine and five miles- for example.

In terms of the bigger picture, irregardless of the way it works normally - and obviously most of the time it does work - the fact that ATC are apparently incapable of providing IFR separation between two filed IFR flights in what I believe is Class B is absolutely wild to me.

Having instead used the F word and cowboy sounding Ha !, and "what is the problem" etc., very quickly put them to the bottom of the ATC priority pile.

It's basic human nature: If you want someone to help you and cooperate with you, don't come heavy handed or swear at them.

Again, this isn’t really how I heard it, nothing he said came across that badly to me. I’m sure the DLH pilot is massively regretting his slight lapse in phraseology, but he’s not swearing at the controller, he’s not trying to be heavy handed, he’s trying to get across that he knows it’s awkward but an emergency is only going to make it worse for everyone. The guy’s probably watched a few US ATC clips on YouTube and based on what he’s heard as their standard is trying to fit in!

From the FR24 track, from when they first fly overhead KSFO to the point they’re headed towards Oakland, 45 minutes worth of vectors have already elapsed and the controller has straight up refused to give them an updated delay. I’ve no idea what we miss in between (the 10 minute delay given 14 mins before isn’t in the video for example) but it’s hardly surprising the pilot is wanting answers by that point. You can’t just put a plane in the “too difficult” pile indefinitely and hope it goes away.

[Sailvi767]

Forgive me here. I'm 14 years retired from a large European operator and operated regularly into many US airports(incl SFO) as Captain of a B747-400.

In my day, iirc, all European operators declined to be part of the LAHSO procedures, and I believe that was annotated in the FPL remarks.

It would seem that this could be a way of giving advance notification of Lufty's restrictions - no visual approaches at night, or some such?

LAHSO is always at the pilots discretion as ATC has no method to determine aircraft landing distances.

[Sailvi767]

Fear of the unknown? Not many larger airports in Europe operate visuals and often they’re banned. Unlike the US (I have flown on both sides) ATC cannot waive radar separation when you report traffic in sight. It seems instead they’re squeezing traffic with accurate radars. I think LHR is allowed 2,5 nm separation? Wake separation can be more restrictive but if you’ve got a series of MEDIUMs (no specific wake separation) you can squeeze them pretty tight too. Any ATC guy, please correct me if I am wrong. My knowledge may be outdated as I think time is now a parameter in maintaining separation??

Apart from above, I am afraid to report that the profession has moved away from piloting to system management. That horse has been beaten to death many times! I am glad to work for an airline encouraging visuals and manual flying. That said, a visual approach and maintaining visual separation may be perceived as two completely different things. In the former, the airspace is yours and you can wiggle your way down as you like. In the later, they pass over some traditional ATC stuff to you, the pilot, in a busy airspace. SoCal and NorCal can be exhausting for someone not used to the pace.

LHR utilizes 2.5 miles with a single runway operation. Any US airports can do the same. The problem is that at SFO the runways are 250’ apart. If you limit approaches to IFR you effectively become a single runway operation and cut your arrival rate in half. Either you do visuals or dramatically slot restrict the airport.

[Request Orbit]

LHR utilizes 2.5 miles with a single runway operation. Any US airports can do the same. The problem is that at SFO the runways are 250’ apart. If you limit approaches to IFR you effectively become a single runway operation and cut your arrival rate in half. Either you do visuals or dramatically slot restrict the airport.

If one aircraft is using the ILS is there something at KSFO saying every aircraft has to? I understand losing a single gap because you can’t do a parallel approach for that aircraft - it’s a heavy in this case so the gap behind is probably going to be standard separation anyway - but then you just go back to paired visuals again right?

[Check Airman]

It's just chalk and cheese. I have said before the U.S relies on visual approaches and separation but this is rare in Europe, where the radar controller is almost always responsible for separation. Radar CONTROL service in the U.K. The radar controller achieves this in a number of ways - if the runway in use is also being used for departures they will liaise tower to achieve spacing. If not it is usually achieved by speed control - maintain 160 knots between nine and five miles- for example.

I can't work out whether the U S just likes it the way it is, the traffic is too heavy to do things the way they are done in Europe or what. The advent of Live ATC enables me to listen to US controllers - To my U K ear it often sounds like things are not really controlled at all. There are advantages - GA traffic would never be able to access all the airspace here it can in the U S here for example.I think it comes down to a difference in ATC philosophy. US ATC seems to be more about separation, UK is more about control.

We went into LHR a few weeks ago, on a gin clear day with what seemed to be a lull in the usual traffic flow. We were all happy to accept a visual, but were treated to the same speed control and vectors that you’d normally get on a busy day.

In the US, most controllers would be happy to clear you for the visual so as to move on to the next task.

[Check Airman]

In terms of the bigger picture, irregardless of the way it works normally - and obviously most of the time it does work - the fact that ATC are apparently incapable of providing IFR separation between two filed IFR flights in what I believe is Class B is absolutely wild to me.


You’re still very much on an IFR flight plan. It’s not a matter of capability. If you want to be able to have this many movements at a particular field, you’ll have to be operationally flexible.

Inflexibility is permitted, but it leads to delays. DLH found this out. They’re not going to sacrifice everyone else just because one plane can’t get with the program.

If one aircraft is using the ILS is there something at KSFO saying every aircraft has to? I understand losing a single gap because you can’t do a parallel approach for that aircraft - it’s a heavy in this case so the gap behind is probably going to be standard separation anyway - but then you just go back to paired visuals again right?

Because of the runway spacing, the plane on the ILS to one runway affects the operation on the other runway. It’s all explained in the second (follow-up) video. The controller now has to find a gap on both runways. A heavy on an ILS takes up more space than a heavy on a visual.

[Verbal Kint]

The second YouTube clip has a good explanation of SFO procedures from the ATC perspective. ATC are most definitely able to provide the full ILS approach, but (1) they need advance warning, and (2) you are going to be delayed while they get the required hole in the sequence to fit you in. I wouldn't expect a foreign crew to have full appreciation of the traffic situation, so perhaps ATC could have kept them better updated on expected approach time etc, but unfortunately that's always going to be imperfect in busy airspace. Even so, declining a fairly straightforward approach that everyone else was happily doing, and ending up in a low fuel diversion to an offline airport is poor TEM. Which was the riskier option?

[Request Orbit]

Because of the runway spacing, the plane on the ILS to one runway affects the operation on the other runway. It’s all explained in the second (follow-up) video. The controller now has to find a gap on both runways. A heavy on an ILS takes up more space than a heavy on a visual.

I get that and I’ve seen that bit of that video (as an aside, a 25 minute video for what looks like 2 notepad screens worth of text is a very painful experience), but people are saying it halves the landing rate. You definitely lose one gap, then you add on potentially an extra minute to each runway on top of that, but that’s massively different from halving the landing rate. If you were landing say 50/hr beforehand, you might now end up landing 47/hr at worst.

The bit that most stood out to me from that video was how it apparently adds risk to passengers and pilots to break them off an arrival to assign headings and speeds. It really is a different world…

Still my biggest issue having struggled to the end of that video: if it was that busy - and I’m sure it was - why was the DLH not just given a 60 minute delay at the outset so they could choose to divert straight away. To reiterate they first stated they required the ILS passing 13.5 at ~0342, it was 0422 when they were given the final “another 10-15 minutes”. Why were they being strung along for so long without any accurate delay information, on what are apparently risky vectors, rather than just let them make the obvious decision to divert to Oakland straight away?

[Verbal Kint]

I get that and I’ve seen that bit of that video (as an aside, a 25 minute video for what looks like 2 notepad screens worth of text is a very painful experience), but people are saying it halves the landing rate. You definitely lose one gap, then you add on potentially an extra minute to each runway on top of that, but that’s massively different from halving the landing rate. If you were landing say 50/hr beforehand, you might now end up landing 47/hr at worst.

The bit that most stood out to me from that video was how it apparently adds risk to passengers and pilots to break them off an arrival to assign headings and speeds. It really is a different world…

Still my biggest issue having struggled to the end of that video: if it was that busy - and I’m sure it was - why was the DLH not just given a 60 minute delay at the outset so they could choose to divert straight away. To reiterate they first stated they required the ILS passing 13.5 at ~0342, it was 0422 when they were given the final “another 10-15 minutes”. Why were they being strung along for so long without any accurate delay information, on what are apparently risky vectors, rather than just let them make the obvious decision to divert to Oakland straight away?

My big takeaway is that ATC prefer LOTS of warning. The ‘charted visuals’ are broadcast on the ATIS, so DLH had lots of time to prepare/make their request. Yes - would have been better to sit up in the hold at 25K, back up the STAR. In fairness though, I wouldn’t expect them to know the ramifications of requesting the ILS. Nonetheless, a review of their decision as fuel was depleting might have prompted them to cancel the ILS request & fit in with everyone else. But there was likely a big dose of plan continuation bias, esp. after getting arsey with ATC.

[Request Orbit]

My big takeaway is that ATC prefer LOTS of warning. The ‘charted visuals’ are broadcast on the ATIS, so DLH had lots of time to prepare/make their request. Yes - would have been better to sit up in the hold at 25K, back up the STAR. In fairness though, I wouldn’t expect them to know the ramifications of requesting the ILS. Nonetheless, a review of their decision as fuel was depleting might have prompted them to cancel the ILS request & fit in with everyone else. But there was likely a big dose of plan continuation bias, esp. after getting arsey with ATC.

It wasn’t just a request though, they required it, they were categorically not allowed to be responsible for visual separation at night as per their company SOPs. Whatever the merits or lack there of for that procedure, I’m sure if it wasn’t important and enforced they would have just done the visual.

[Verbal Kint]

The SOPs are a framework- they’re great 99% of the time but they can’t possibly account for every possible scenario. I wouldn’t have any problem defending to the CP why I willingly violated ‘no visual traffic separation at night’ to avoid a fuel emergency & diversion, especially when I couldn’t get a straight answer from ATC. Risk management is what they pay us the big bucks for.

We’re Monday Morning Quarterbacking this to death. Maybe there were other extenuating circumstances we don’t know about? Good discussion.

[Bksmithca]

Question for anyone.
I'm wondering when the flight plan was filed by Lufthansa would they have filed for IFR complete with any ILS landing at SFO??

[FullWings]

Never have I felt pressure, either internal nor external pressure to report the airport in sight. Being asked if the airport is in sight is not the same as being pressured.
I have had somewhat different experiences, in that some places won’t let you descend until you’ve called visual. The coping mechanism (see my post earlier) is to call visual, even if you’re not, and follow the IFR profile, so at least you’re safe in that respect. I’ve often wondered what would happen if you called their bluff and went sailing over the airfield at 4/5,000’...
Agree, if you can’t fly the visual, you can’t fly the visual. You also have the responsibility to let ATC know in a timely manner. Timely wouldn’t be when you’re just a few minutes from landing and the spacing and separation is already set.
Agreed, but even though I’m not qualified as a controller, I think I could slot someone in given 15 minutes to find (or create) a gap. In this case it seems to be almost a “revenge” delay and unhelpfulness. Which begs the age old question: “am I up here because you’re down there, or are you down there because I’m up here?”...

[West Coast]

I have had somewhat different experiences, in that some places won’t let you descend until you’ve called visual. The coping mechanism (see my post earlier) is to call visual, even if you’re not, and follow the IFR profile, so at least you’re safe in that respect. I’ve often wondered what would happen if you called their bluff and went sailing over the airfield at 4/5,000’...

Agreed, but even though I’m not qualified as a controller, I think I could slot someone in given 15 minutes to find (or create) a gap. In this case it seems to be almost a “revenge” delay and unhelpfulness. Which begs the age old question: “am I up here because you’re down there, or are you down there because I’m up here?”...

You might be able to find a slot, but at the expense of another arrival who now takes delay vectors /hold to open up the spacing.

As to calling the field, I’m in SFO monthly and have never been pressured, either I do or I don’t have the field in sight. Respectfully, I suggest you rethink your decision to report the field in sight when it’s not.

[Sailvi767]

I get that and I’ve seen that bit of that video (as an aside, a 25 minute video for what looks like 2 notepad screens worth of text is a very painful experience), but people are saying it halves the landing rate. You definitely lose one gap, then you add on potentially an extra minute to each runway on top of that, but that’s massively different from halving the landing rate. If you were landing say 50/hr beforehand, you might now end up landing 47/hr at worst.

The bit that most stood out to me from that video was how it apparently adds risk to passengers and pilots to break them off an arrival to assign headings and speeds. It really is a different world…

Still my biggest issue having struggled to the end of that video: if it was that busy - and I’m sure it was - why was the DLH not just given a 60 minute delay at the outset so they could choose to divert straight away. To reiterate they first stated they required the ILS passing 13.5 at ~0342, it was 0422 when they were given the final “another 10-15 minutes”. Why were they being strung along for so long without any accurate delay information, on what are apparently risky vectors, rather than just let them make the obvious decision to divert to Oakland straight away?

I think you are not grasping that at SFO the runways are so close together that if shooting Instrument approaches it’s essentially a single runway operation. If doing visuals it’s a two runway operation. With 750 feet of lateral separation from the centerlines you don’t gain anything or have the ability to stagger traffic to increase arrival rate. Here is a quote from the airport.

SFO operates on two sets of parallel runways. On fair weather days, SFO can accommodate approximately 60 arrivals per hour. During periods of low visibility, current FAA safety regulations allow aircraft to arrive side-by-side only if runways are at least 4,300 feet apart. SFO’s runways are only 750 feet apart, so aircraft must arrive single-file. This reduces the airport’s arrival rate to approximately 30 per hour, requiring the FAA to implement a Ground Delay Program to meter flights into SFO.

[FullWings]

You might be able to find a slot, but at the expense of another arrival who now takes delay vectors /hold to open up the spacing.

As to calling the field, I’m in SFO monthly and have never been pressured, either I do or I don’t have the field in sight. Respectfully, I suggest you rethink your decision to report the field in sight when it’s not.
Again, I’m in two minds over this one, but having operated a fair bit into SFO (not once a month, though) and in some less-than-perfect weather, I haven’t experienced delays even when everyone has to do the ILS due to the cloud ceiling/vis. That sort of hints that they could could do it “properly” if they wanted to but can’t be bothered.

Personally, I don’t call visual unless it fulfils the criteria I operate to; I was offering an explanation as to maybe that’s why I have experienced other aircraft calling visual when I, in the same position just before/after, see no possibility of doing so...

[Request Orbit]

I think you are not grasping that at SFO the runways are so close together that if shooting Instrument approaches it’s essentially a single runway operation. If doing visuals it’s a two runway operation. With 750 feet of lateral separation from the centerlines you don’t gain anything or have the ability to stagger traffic to increase arrival rate. Here is a quote from the airport.

SFO operates on two sets of parallel runways. On fair weather days, SFO can accommodate approximately 60 arrivals per hour. During periods of low visibility, current FAA safety regulations allow aircraft to arrive side-by-side only if runways are at least 4,300 feet apart. SFO’s runways are only 750 feet apart, so aircraft must arrive single-file. This reduces the airport’s arrival rate to approximately 30 per hour, requiring the FAA to implement a Ground Delay Program to meter flights into SFO.

But only 1 aircraft is doing an ILS, the rest are still visual, unless there’s something that forces the aircraft 10 behind in the sequence to do the ILS just because someone else is? In this case it’s single runway for the DLH gap-pair, not every gap-pair for an hour? Even if they lose both the side-by-side gap for the DLH, and as it’s a heavy let’s say the gap-pair behind too, that’s only 3 gaps lost so you’re still landing 57/hr (NOT 30).

[Check Airman]

Again, I’m in two minds over this one, but having operated a fair bit into SFO (not once a month, though) and in some less-than-perfect weather, I haven’t experienced delays even when everyone has to do the ILS due to the cloud ceiling/vis. That sort of hints that they could could do it “properly” if they wanted to but can’t be bothered.



You wouldn’t experience a delay, because in those situations, the widebody coming in from FRA will be given the priority.

The 737 coming from Denver will be held on the ground for hours, or tactically vectored around the country to achieve the required spacing if already flying…which leads to a ton of passengers missing their connections to Asia, and upset airline managers calling ATC.

So when ATC makes a reasonable request, they expect and anticipate you’ll be able to comply and not have your hands tied by a paper pusher.

[Check Airman]

But only 1 aircraft is doing an ILS, the rest are still visual, unless there’s something that forces the aircraft 10 behind in the sequence to do the ILS just because someone else is? In this case it’s single runway for the DLH gap-pair, not every gap-pair for an hour? Even if they lose both the side-by-side gap for the DLH, and as it’s a heavy let’s say the gap-pair behind too, that’s only 3 gaps lost so you’re still landing 57/hr (NOT 30).

Have you seen the second video? It’s a bit long, but it clearly explains what ATC was dealing with.

[Koan]

Didn't miss the point. It just didn't matter and the result would have been the same. If it's saturated, SFO isn't going to shut down the stream to the parallel runway and slow his own down just so Lufthansa can have his ILS.

And how do we even know this established international carrier captain is even well-versed in his own Company's SOPs? After all and I may be wrong, but I doubt the Lufthansa Radiotelephony Phraseology Section of their RT SOPs has the note: "Don't say "F***" on the radio, except when outside EASA Airspace".

But hey, Lufthansa. I remember late one night in Riyadh Lufthansa holding short of a runway for at least 30 minutes blocking 5 or 6 other aircraft because the stop bar lights had malfunctioned and were stuck ON. No aircraft inbound for that runway and the excited controller tried telling, and eventually yelling, that he was cleared to cross the lights because they were broken. Yet still, being the captain of an established international air carrier, he refused, no doubt because despite the utter absence of inbound traffic and the controllers directives, it was in his SOPs. Not being able to taxi forward, turn around, or get out of the way, it was quite a mess for those stuck behind him who I'm sure were dropping some F-bombs themselves, just not on the radio. Happily, we avoided by launching off the other runway which, by necessity, they began using for departures. I don't know how long they all ended up sitting, but I suppose they stayed right where they were at until someone in a truck showed up to cut a wire or, more likely, smashed the lights to the OFF position with a hammer.

Good story
Sometimes one should just "be the Captain"

[Capn Bloggs]

You wouldn’t experience a delay, because in those situations, the widebody coming in from FRA will be given the priority.

The 737 coming from Denver will be held on the ground for hours
​​​​​​​What on earth are you talking about??

[Check Airman]

What on earth are you talking about??

FullWings said he hadn’t experienced delays when having to shoot the ILS into SFO, and suggested ATC was just being lazy on the day I’m question. I was simply explaining why he’d be less likely to see a delay.

His location is given as the U.K., so I’m assuming he’d be going into SFO from Europe.

[Capn Bloggs]

I was simply explaining why he’d be less likely to see a delay.
And the 737 being held on the ground for hours? What's that all about?

[stilton]

If a U.S. crew operating into a major European or U.K. airport during peak times demanded an approach no one else was using that would slow the flow down then swore at the controller for the inevitable delay they received there would be quite a different reaction on the subject !

[Request Orbit]

Have you seen the second video? It’s a bit long, but it clearly explains what ATC was dealing with.

I’m assuming that it’s the one that explains it with a diagram like this. A normal 10-min traffic sequence would look like this:
.x….x….x….x….x…
..x….x….x….x….x.

To land the DLH would look like this:
.x….x….…x….x..
​..x…..……..x….x.

A halving of the landing rate would look like this:
.x….x….x….x….x..
​​​​​…………………………..

Or alternatively this;
.x……..x……..x…
…….x……..x……..

Doing full instrument approaches for every aircraft halves the landing rate, making an individual gap for an individual instrument aircraft should not halve the landing rate, and I didn’t see anything in the video to suggest otherwise. Sure, 3 gaps in a busy sequence is still a hit, but it’s infinitely different to drop to 57 planes in an hour, not the 30 planes in an hour that guy was claiming.

[Del Prado]

….. I think LHR is allowed 2,5 nm separation? Wake separation can be more restrictive but if you’ve got a series of MEDIUMs (no specific wake separation) you can squeeze them pretty tight too. Any ATC guy, please correct me if I am wrong. My knowledge may be outdated as I think time is now a parameter in maintaining separation??


Wake turbulence separation is applied by time rather than distance. Minimum radar separation for non vortex pairs remains 2.5nm but the next step is to apply non vortex spacing via time also (possibly next year.)

LHR parallel runways are 1400 metres apart (so still not separated but much further apart than SFO), a landing rate of 50 is achievable if they are both used for landing ILS traffic staggered on parallel runways. 2 mile slant radar separation is the minimum and 2.5nm or vortex minimum (time) in trail.

If there’s a stream of arrivals on the left runway it’s efficient to vector arrivals for the right runway between the pairs of arrivals on the left.

If SFO are declaring 30 arrivals per runway that implies a spacing of about 5.8 miles per runway, should be enough room to get one on the ILS to the other runway in that gap. Even if you stretch it to 7 or 8 miles to accommodate the Lufthansa then you’ve still only lost a couple of miles.

But regardless of how easy it would have been to accommodate the DLH, you can’t give a delay of 10 minutes and then not update it until it’s expired only to then double the delay when queried.

**** is barely a swear word to Europeans whose second language is English. They are exposed to it so much in culture, music, Tv, films, etc. I’ve walked round supermarkets in Europe to the sound of “**** you” by CeLo Green, or been at kids sports days where the explicit version of a song in English is played, it’s completely normalised. If you watch F1 you’ll see a pattern of the European drivers saying ‘****’ almost all the time but the native English speakers never say it. It’s a cultural difference.
I still don’t think there’s any place for it on the RT but a German pilot would not consider it as strong a word as US or British crews and the DLH pilot was definitely not swearing at the controller.

[Check Airman]

And the 737 being held on the ground for hours? What's that all about?
That's why he doesn't get the delay...

[Capn Bloggs]

And the 737 being held on the ground for hours? What's that all about?
That's why he doesn't get the delay...
That's clearly ridiculous. You obviously do have no idea. Pretty obvious though from your previous posts.

[stilton]

Wake turbulence separation is applied by time rather than distance. Minimum radar separation for non vortex pairs remains 2.5nm but the next step is to apply non vortex spacing via time also (possibly next year.)

LHR parallel runways are 1400 metres apart (so still not separated but much further apart than SFO), a landing rate of 50 is achievable if they are both used for landing ILS traffic staggered on parallel runways. 2 mile slant radar separation is the minimum and 2.5nm or vortex minimum (time) in trail.

If there’s a stream of arrivals on the left runway it’s efficient to vector arrivals for the right runway between the pairs of arrivals on the left.

If SFO are declaring 30 arrivals per runway that implies a spacing of about 5.8 miles per runway, should be enough room to get one on the ILS to the other runway in that gap. Even if you stretch it to 7 or 8 miles to accommodate the Lufthansa then you’ve still only lost a couple of miles.

But regardless of how easy it would have been to accommodate the DLH, you can’t give a delay of 10 minutes and then not update it until it’s expired only to then double the delay when queried.

**** is barely a swear word to Europeans whose second language is English. They are exposed to it so much in culture, music, Tv, films, etc. I’ve walked round supermarkets in Europe to the sound of “**** you” by CeLo Green, or been at kids sports days where the explicit version of a song in English is played, it’s completely normalised. If you watch F1 you’ll see a pattern of the European drivers saying ‘****’ almost all the time but the native English speakers never say it. It’s a cultural difference.
I still don’t think there’s any place for it on the RT but a German pilot would not consider it as strong a word as US or British crews and the DLH pilot was definitely not swearing at the controller.


He most certainly was


So because the f word is used in music and TV it’s ok to use it to pressure and insult a controller with it if you’re not getting your way ?


What nonsense, almost as much as the idea Germans don’t know what the word means


A tip for this particular pilot in future that he seems to need is when asking for special consideration from a controller just be polite

[Check Airman]

That's clearly ridiculous. You obviously do have no idea. Pretty obvious though from your previous posts.
You and I aren't getting anywhere with each other. Let's agree to disagree.

[Del Prado]

He most certainly was


So because the f word is used in music and TV it’s ok to use it to pressure and insult a controller with it if you’re not getting your way ?


What nonsense, almost as much as the idea Germans don’t know what the word means


I’ve had a British pilot describe an RNAV approach as “****” on the RT before. He wasn’t swearing AT me, not insulting me, just using it as an adverb.

I never said Germans don’t know what the F word means, just that it doesn’t carry nearly so much weight to someone who speaks English as a second language. I provided examples too and I’ve experienced it many times in Europe.

Im just trying to provide some context so views don’t get entrenched on the swearing issue. (Not sure how that’s going….😆)

[an.other]

To me, this looks like a fundamental Lufty flight planning weakness.

This mode of operation is pretty standard at SFO. If you know this, which the company does, plus that you'll be landing in darkness, you can understand sat in Munich way in advance, it's not so hard to put 2 and 2 together and identify a hazrad, ie. that your company SOPs risk a holding delay. It's entirely foreseeable. In that case, you brief this eventuality, agree what to do, and load fuel for holding just like you would if a weather delay was foreseeable.

This isn't a one-off charter landing in a rarely served field, but an exceptionally routine daily flight. The fact Lufty's SOPs and planning couldn't identify a basic hazard in an exceptionally routine situation (MUN-SFO daily scheduled), like a delay causing a night landing in a mode you can't fly, is not a good advert for them.

In terms of ATC, what are they meant to do if there is a queue of planes stretching over the Rockies? At the outset, ATC advised of a lengthy delay and they were right. ATC was accommodating the request, but that will naturally take time. All of that was predictable back in Munich.

Lufty's Karen outcry (by the male) was pretty pathetic and showed a lack of situational awareness and understanding about the airspace they were in. I get the crew may not be frequent visitors, but landing at a major global hub at 1900, that has a heavily restricted runway layout, and expecting anything other than what they got is naive at best. Plus, Lufty has been flying to the US for 70?years, they do know full well the US can do things differently.

[Capn Bloggs]

In terms of ATC, what are they meant to do if there is a queue of planes stretching over the Rockies? At the outset, ATC advised of a lengthy delay and they were right. ATC was accommodating the request, but that will naturally take time. All of that was predictable back in Munich.
This topic is becoming more ridiculous as time goes on. Of course the system has to be able to accommodate changes in the sequence. Are you seriously suggesting that the sequence was set in stone when LH458 left Germany? Local jets comply with the GDP and internationals fill in the holes that were deliberately planned-for. To suggest that an extra 2nm couldn't be inserted before the LH is just nonsense. It wasn't as though the LH was a new entrant at 40nm to run.

[WHBM]

One would have thought that SFO, of ALL places, would have understood the value of ILS. One recent very near miss which had lined up on the taxyway during a visual night approach, one hit the boundary wall and was destroyed during a visual approach ... does nobody there care ? I wouldn't be surprised if the LH procedure was actually as a result of seeing such events.

Nonetheless, a review of their decision as fuel was depleting might have prompted them to cancel the ILS request & fit in with everyone else.
Away with ICAO standard methods and SOPs then, here it's a FIFO procedure - "Fit In or F*** Off".

[an.other]

This topic is becoming more ridiculous as time goes on. Of course the system has to be able to accommodate changes in the sequence. Are you seriously suggesting that the sequence was set in stone when LH458 left Germany? Local jets comply with the GDP and internationals fill in the holes that were deliberately planned-for. To suggest that an extra 2nm couldn't be inserted before the LH is just nonsense. It wasn't as though the LH was a new entrant at 40nm to run.

Now, don't be silly; of course the sequence isn't predictable, so what? The probability of this situation is predictable.

It is totally predictable that you are very likely picking up a nasty delay if landing during peak time at a busy operationally constrained airport when you know your company rules mean fitting in with ATC's standard procedure is a no no.

I don't know how familiar you are with SFO. It isn't only a matter of sticking in an extra 2nm on one stack, that should be easy enough. At SFO you basically lose an entire landing slot on the parallel runway, and no ATC is going along with that at peak landing time with aircraft already stacked up to capacity on both runways 100nm out. No ATC is going to send somebody around to accommodate this request, which is what would be needed in these predictable circumstances, at a constrained and busy airport during peak times.

Lufty's constraint is apparently about visual seperation of aircraft at night, and without losing a slot on the parallel runway, there is no way around this with SFOs set up.

Anticipate and plan for a predictable lengthy delay.

[Capn Bloggs]

Peak time? Hardly.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/408x314/ksfo_webtrak_16oct23_d0d04af7ccf1dfb5d17f6ccbd4b83bd0541c2bd e.png

[Chesty Morgan]

I guess SFO can't cope with a missed approach or two and slotting them back in to the sequence...

What a useless place.

[BBK]

I guess SFO can't cope with a missed approach or two and slotting them back in to the sequence...

What a useless place.

To be fair to NORCAL I think they could cope but according to some folks on here asking for an ILS and saying no can do to maintaining visual separation at night is being awkward!

I must have been lucky all the times I’ve been there and flown the ILS without any drama. Only time I’ve held was in quite atrocious weather landing easterly. It was on TAF so we had the fuel. I think there’s much more to this episode than any of us can know.

[PukinDog]

Well der, obviously! That's what the whole topic is about. I give up.

Probably a good idea. Repeatedly discounting and deflecting away from the particulars of the approach cited by those who have routinely flown it, and instead continue to push the idea you believe it's inherently unsafe because of what you see on a chart and assume goes on, or to impugn the ability ATC to "handle traffic" as if there's no reason for this approach-type's existence, seems rooted in a starting position of never having actually flown it.

Seemed that way from the beginning with your ":rolleyes:" at my statement mentioning that TCAS assists with spotting the aircraft you will eventually be pairing-up with on the parallel visual approach before ATC calls it out and asks to verify in sight and maintain separation. It helps identify the stream for the parallel runway and/or gaps into which someone is being vectored that will eventually be on an opposing dogleg, base, or combination and wind up about 500' off your wingtip. If you deny that TCAS helps with SA as it relates to one's place in the stream relative to others and picking them up visually, then I don't know what to say to remedy that, and it's not as if SFO doesn't share the airspace with Oakland and San Jose either.

Everyone routinely flying in and out of SFO knows the form-up into pairs on final is the critical juncture due to the possibility of an overshoot by either aircraft, and eyes need to be kept on the traffic you've verified to ATC is in sight. Everyone knows to tune the respective ILS freq with raw data displayed as a SA back-up and for eventual use within the last few miles when lining-up from the slight offset. Everyone who's done it knows there is no fancy flying required for this visual, it's benign as it get in that respect. What everyone knows about SFO with centerlnes 750' apart, is vigilance with respect to other aircraft when parallel approaches are being conducted no matter the approach type.

Long before they form inbounds up in pairs on final, the in-trail spacing in each stream has already been established by ATC using assigned speeds, The "maintain visual separation" instruction does not cancel one's speed assignment. If it did and everyone's speed control was left to their own devices the entire exercise would be pointless as streams would become giant Slinkies. Speed assignments are usually maintained until 5 miles out when aircraft can dirty up and be stabilised by 1000'. Again, routine speed control stuff that mirrors what you'll find on an ILSs worldwide.

Those familiar also realize the speed-controlled visual approach pairings with slight in-trail & vertical stagger instead of the 1 to 1.5 miles spacing using parallel ILSs facilitate more arrivals and create the gaps that allow those pesky little things called "departures" to take place with greater frequency. Also, if the traffic you're following blows his speed assignment by slowing too early TCAS is the first indicator this will be easily be observed and, depending on the aircraft types and wind conditions, whether an adjustment of glide path to avoid wake turbulence is advisable.

And to reiterate: You can fly to the US and refuse the Visuals because you believe them unsafe and wait to be worked-in for an ILS. Swell. Good for you, but if they're conducting visual approaches you're in VMC conditions, and thus the FAA mandate that "vigilance shall be maintained" by the pilot in order to see and avoid other aircraft applies. That's a "shall", and while this may come as a surprise and create despair for those from where every minute spent on an IFR fight plan flight is logged as "Instrument Time" regardless of flight conditions, in FAA-land flight conditions matter when it.comes the pilot's responsibility to look-for and separate oneself from other traffic by avoiding if necessary. TCAS/ADS-B/IFR fight plan/established on a STAR/being vectored/ inside Class B airspace/established an ILS approach..none of the aforementioned negates the rule to maintain vigilance to see and avoid, The fact that ATC is responsible for traffic separation of all traffic in Class B doesn't erase the pilot's mandated responsibility in VMC. Neither does being cleared for an instrument approach.

Pretend SFO happily works you in and clears you for an ILS 28R on a VMC night you refused the visual approach. Your responsibility under FAA regs remains the same; to see and maintain the surveillance of an aircraft 500' to your right and ahead 1 mile on the parallel approach as well as the traffic you're in-trail of to the same runway. If the traffic ahead happens to be a Lufthansa A380 flown by a Captain who decides to let his party animal side hang out by accepting the Visual approach, are you not going to monitor your spacing in terms of distance and vertical path?

If you feel safe in your ILS bubble and erroneously believe looking outside for and at traffic is too difficult or beyond your scope of responsibility, I give you Cathay 892 at SFO in 2019 in VMC conditions, already at an assigned altitude and speed being vectored on a left downwind for Rwy 28L, planning to intercept the LOC. When Cathay was given a base turn heading 010 and speed 180 they acknowledged, but 30 seconds later they still hadn't begun their turn and slowed only 10 knots. When ATC queried this re the turn Cathay acknowledged but requested the heading assignment again because someone must not have bugged 010 the first time they read it back. Due to Cathay's non-turn, ATC had to sharpen if off downwind and assigned them left to 330. 30 seconds after ATC assigned 330 they turned them left further to a heading of 310 degrees and cleared them to intercept the 28L LOC. Cathay acknowledged and read back the heading assignment and clearance to intercept.

30 seconds after receiving the clearance but prior to the intercept ATC called-out to Cathay the traffic on approach to the parallel runway 28R; United at 3 o'clock, 2 miles, 800' higher and asked Cathay if they had them in sight. Cathay responded they had United in sight. ATC then asked Cathay to maintain visual separation and descend to 3000', which Cathay needed repeating. When repeated, Cathay read back the full clearance including the directive to maintain visual separation from United. At this point the flight paths of the 2 aircraft were gently converging. When they were 1 mile apart with Cathay yet to intercept the LOC, United was to their right, 500' higher which put them in clear view from Cathay's cockpit window. In clear view, that is, if anyone had still been keeping an eye on them as they had acknowledged to ATC mere seconds before they would, and as required by FAA regs.

But despite the clearance to intercept the LOC, and despite their acknowledgement that their traffic was in sight, and despite the associated acknowledgement to maintain visual surveillance in order to ensure separation, Cathay still blew through their LOC course before overtaking to pass 700' underneath United who, by then, had arrested their decent at 3900' and confirmed the traffic call by ATC when it came. United levelled-off and maintained their altitude until Cathay, 1000 below them, had turned left to point their nose at the correct runway.

A couple points; Notice that Cathy's clearance to intercept the LOC and their acknowledgment to do so did absolutely nothing to ensure they didn't blow through it. Also note; despite verifying their traffic was in sight and acknowledgment of the subsequent instruction to maintain visual separation from that traffic and in contravention of 91.113 re maintaining vigilance to see and avoid plus the right of way rule pertaining to overtaking another aircraft, they wound up right underneath United and following an RA. Whooda thunk it.

Now I don't know how many sets of eyes and ears were in that Cathay cockpit, 2 for sure, probably more. After they verified United was in sight, at no time would it have ever not been in sight unless nobody was looking outside. What is patently obvious is that nobody was, even for traffic they knew they were converging on. That requires some serious heads-down flying. Even if they tuned the wrong LOC freq they should have never gotten to the point they wound up under United, and they wouldn't have had they been complying with their clearance and regs in VMC conditions.

As for moaning about SFO ATC not being flexible, the Controller with the patience of that guy who's famous for being patient, instead of right then sending Cathay to go enjoy the view of fabulous Oakland, instead asked him their intentions. When that wasn't forthcoming ATC offered Cathay a visual approach, which they accepted. The Controller..in slow, clear language...then cleared Cathay for the visual approach to 28L, directed them to reduce speed ASAP to the slowest practical, and (again) to maintain visual separation behind (that same United) traffic ahead with the reminder that United was going for 28R and they were cleared for the Left. There was nothing left on the pallet for him to try and paint for Cathay in words the clearest possible SA picture they hadn't put together for themselves up until that point. Cathay accepted the clearance to continue on a visual for 28L. Only 20 seconds later, to give Cathay even more opportunity to salvage their cluster of an approach and hand him off, the Controller approved them for an S-turn if needed to stay behind United still high to their right and directed them to contact the Tower. Meanwhile, United had already been handed-off to Tower but was still maintaining 1000' above Cathay.

Cathay didn't switch to Tower, however, because it seems the cockpit fog still hadn't cleared despite moments earlier accepting the new visual approach clearance. Upon being asked to switch to Tower freq Cathay responded by asking Appch to "confirm we're cleared for the ILS 28L?" Wow, after all that mucking-about that guy's still thinking "ILS, must have the ILS".

At that juncture, realizing that acknowledgements and readbacks by this particular gang were as reliable as one-night stand promises in Wan Chai, the Controller finally punched Cathay's AMF button and grabbed big binos to scan for the smoke trail being left by all the helmet fires going on inside that A350 cockpit. Meanwhile on the RH side tower freq United was still at 3100', 1500' above Cathay and by now really wanting descend if not for the RA he received, asking Tower what Cathay is doing behind him rather than immediately accepting Tower's landing clearance. Tower points him out at his 8:30 low position and then advises United that Cathay is being broken off his approach.

What I'm wondering is how many on that crew were dead-set against visual approaches, deeming them unsafe, although I'm not sure even the word "Visual" would nudge them into accepting the fact that windscreens are made clear for a reason other than to look up at 200'. .

I have no experience with European or Oz SOPs, but I've never come across a well-written set that doesn't set forth in the preamble some reference to there being an expectation of exercising good airmanship at all times, and in this way good airmanship becomes part of the SOP. Maintaining vigilance to see and avoid other aircraft when conditions permit falls squarely into that directive in most people's thinking, and I can think of more places than just Dubai or Hong Kong where at times it seems few F's are given during arrival/approach sequencing re wake turbulence avoidance in the vertical where they should know better: Descend that Triple down through my altitude? No worries mate don't trouble yourself to point him out. I saw him and..whoa hey look at the size of that giant cargo ship hauling Happy Meal toys to America.

And last time I checked, IFR flight plans and Instrument approaches are just about useless as forms of insurance against un-announced airborne surprises if one is flying an approach into Mopti, departing out of Khartoum, or even just trucking down a high altitude airway between Cairo and Luanda etc etc ad infinitum. And while your snarky little emojis probably play well in certain circles, if you aren't using TCAS to help pick out airborne traffic more easily so as to allow you more time to pick up targets of the type that may not show up, then good luck. But if you didn't like that, you're gonna hate this: I maintain that FLIR/HUD is also a useful tool to help picking out traffic visually, especially at night...how many :rolleyes:s does that earn me? No matter, I'll just keep using the tools at my disposal until someone give me a good reason I shouldn't. Still waiting.

Which reminds me, you've been asked how much you've flown into SFO and experienced these approaches, most likely because you seem to feel so strongly about them and express yourself with such authority. But I'm not seeing much that indicates familiarity. Any answer yet?

[shared reality]

As an aside, this occurrence reminded me of something I encountered app 12 years ago.

Back then, I was on leave from my regular outfit, and flew in Dubai for 2 years.
Traveling as pax on Lufthansa from FRA to DXB, as we approached DXB we got put in a hold (as happens every single time approaching DXB at that time of day). Didn't think much of it until the CDR came on the PA stating we would be diverting to AUH (Abu Dhabi) and refuel....

I thought, wow... LH flies every day, same time of day, FRA-DXB, and being an A340-600 on a 5.5 hr flight, why not bring x amount of extra fuel to accommodate for the "guaranteed" hold arriving into DXB??? I am not pointing fingers at LH, but to me it is strange that you don't bring extra fuel into high density airports where you are familiar, thus knowing there are going to be delays..

Sorry for the drift..

[xray one]

As someone who operates regularly into SFO; in my experience they control you onto base leg then... "cleared for the visual RW xx"...call visual and treat it as an ILS. The only thing that will change is the go around.

[Del Prado]

Anyone know what spacing they use at SFO?

A landing rate of 30 per hour per runway would imply an average of 5 and half mile spacing. 6 or 7 miles would be enough to fit in aircraft that couldn’t accept visual separation.
What’s wrong with adding a mile or two on one gap to accommodate the DLH? You wouldn’t lose a whole movement on the other runway although both sequences would be a mile or two further back.
Just remember to position the DLH in the middle of the gap rather than on the shoulder of the preceding so there maybe one departure movement lost.

Eg. An A380 followed by an A320 both on 27R. They probably give 6 or 7 miles there for the vortex. Vector the DLH on 27L in that gap and you’ll have over 3 miles radar separation from them both. No loss of movement or increase in delays.

[Koan]

Well we know the USA does not have much regard for ILS. The Asiana accident report shows the ILS was out of action at San Francisco, both main landing runways at the same time, for three months, "for construction". The fact that the Asiana crew had hardly any experience of visual landings outside their Sim sessions shows there are few if any other administrations who might do this.

It was 10 years ago but I remember a pilot bulletin to the effect that Norcal would not be issuing KSFO visual approaches to foreign carriers for the time being, so expect delay

Overreaction, but the disaster occurred in perfect day VFR conditions to a 11,000 ft runway

[megan]

Great post Pukin :ok:

[Daxon]

Hear,hear to megan concerning the post from PukinDog. :ok:

[ATC Watcher]

Sounds like everyone is entrenched.in its own beliefs and no-one is going to convince the other side. Signs of the times,
I normally here always try to defend ATC and give background on the why, but here, it is a bit the other way around, an ATPL from any airline , and even more an established one with a quite good safety record as LH, has to follow its employer SOPs. So he had to refuse to maintain visual separation at night. if his SOP said so

ATC is a before all, a service to pilots, to keep them safe according to established standards not a commercial entity pushed to increase numbers to make profit for the airlines or the airports. . Accommodating pilots requests is our job. ATC can propose never force a pilot to do something out of the standard. Here ATC should have accommodated him and not force him to divert.
On the : delaying 12 others to accommodate one : It is still all over the world for ATC : " first come first served". We wanted years ago to have this changed to : " best equipped, best served" but this was fiercely opposed by ..the USA under the pressure from its large domestic airlines that were still operating Jurassic jets. and opposed to any retrofit costs. I do not think this has changed.
So you get these own separation visuals out of the standards instead of RNPs...

Last remark from PunkinDog on TCAS :
If you deny that TCAS helps with SA as it relates to one's place in the stream relative to others and picking them up visually, then I don't know what to say to remedy that,
Both IFALPA and us fought hard on the ICAO FANS in the 90s.to keep TCAS where it belongs , a last minute anti collision system . It is not a separation tool and due to its poor azimuth definition ( +/- 11 degrees) it cannot be used for visual Aquisition. In my days when we issued a conditional clearance involving another aircraft and passed traffic info and the pilot replied, " we've got it on TCAS" we always replied, " fine ,but I need you to identifying visually this one ,by looking out of the window.
Remember that the one you see on TCAS might not be the one I am talking about.

Bending the rules because it seems to work is really not sound safety management.
Just read the transcript of the NTSB Chairwoman , Jennifer Homendy on the US senate ,relating to ATC understaffing and fatigue , Not pretty . An not a good idea to bend the rules when you are in this situation .

[WillowRun 6-3]

But ATC Watcher, isn't one of PukinDog's main points that the Luft. captain could have complied with the visual separation task despite the SOP against visual approach?

I'm saying this just from point-of-view of the traveling public: while the ATC system does indeed provide service to flights, in this situation, the Luft. captain had responsibility for just his flight operation, while the ATCOs had a goodly number of flight operations arranged and in sequence for approach and landing onto runways presenting some challenge due to their lateral proximity. To the traveling public, it looks like a situation in which controllers had some sizable degree of discretion. So - even if they could have re-arranged the line-up of flight operations in sequence, that does not mean they were required to do such re-arrangimg, or even that they should have done so. I wonder, were the inaccuracies of the estimated delay times a reflection of heavy workload, other stressors in the traffic? . . . it does not sound like the changing estimates of delay time were at all deliberate. But the larger point is, doesn't ATC have discretion about whether to "work someone into the existing sequence" or not. (I'm not apologizing for my ignorance of proper terminology, although as SLF/attorney I obviously recognize it indeed is ignorance on my part.)

By the way, NTSB Chair tells a Senate Committee to worry all over again about inadequate controller staffing levels and prevalence of fatigue issues. Does that not support the need to acknowledge significant controller discretion in handling exactly this kind of situation?

[Request Orbit]

But ATC Watcher, isn't one of PukinDog's main points that the Luft. captain could have complied with the visual separation task despite the SOP against visual approach?

The SOP specifically forbade the DLH from applying visual separation themselves. Pukindog is emphasising that pilots have to keep an eye out at all times to see and avoid, which is fair enough. This doesn’t override ATC being responsible for providing separation in Class B though, which is a specific criteria, usually more than just “make sure they don’t hit each other” - which is what you’re otherwise aiming to achieve with the see and avoid responsibility in VMC. See and avoid as a form of separation is what applies in Class G, the whole point of having higher classes of airspace is to provide protection above just see and avoid. If DLH want to ensure they’re given that additional protection at night, so be it.

I wonder, were the inaccuracies of the estimated delay times a reflection of heavy workload, other stressors in the traffic? . . . it does not sound like the changing estimates of delay time were at all deliberate. But the larger point is, doesn't ATC have discretion about whether to "work someone into the existing sequence" or not. (I'm not apologizing for my ignorance of proper terminology, although as SLF/attorney I obviously recognize it indeed is ignorance on my part.)

Some posters were saying “well they should have taken more fuel for the inevitable delay”, again fair enough. However at no point that we know of did the DLH ever get an accurate delay. They were initially given “extended delays”, which apparently meant “at least 40 minutes”. We know they were told 10 minutes after about half an hour, then 14 minutes after that told “another 10-15 minutes”. How much extra fuel do you need to uplift for a 10 minute delay that extends by another 10 minutes every 15 minutes? How are you supposed to quantify that? If you’re not able to provide an accurate time to pilots, how on earth are pilots going to be able to make a definitive plan. A pilot asking for the delay in minutes shouldn’t need to be a conversation, it’s a question followed by an answer.

This isn’t an unpredictable weather scenario where the delay is fluid. If the delay is because you already have traffic sequenced back to SLC and you’re not willing to delay that sequence, then you know it’s going to be more than 10-15 minutes and you have to be honest and accurate. Whatever your stance on the justification for the delay, it doesn’t mesh with what the DLH was being given in terms of delay minutes. There’s obviously no gap in the sequence so why string them along?

[KKN_]

Related or unrelated to the case as it might be,

[...]
The 737 coming from Denver will be held on the ground for hours, or tactically vectored around the country to achieve the required spacing if already flying…which leads to a ton of passengers missing their connections to Asia, and upset airline managers calling ATC. [...]

If that is an accurate depiction, wouldn't that be a sign of a deep-rooted deficit in the specific operating culture? I would like to believe that that manager would be met with swear words as well.

Speaking of underlying causes, neither participant of the present exchange, nor any aviation stakeholder would probably mind if the narrow runway spacing at SFO was fixed. Outside players, that might be a different story ...

[WillowRun 6-3]

Request Orbit
Thanks for taking the time to correct my misunderstanding specifically about SOP.

About the multiple estimates of delay. I had wondered what could have led to ATC providing such a sequence of repeatedly unreliable estimates. Tempting though it will be, I'm not speculating about whether such unexpected, or even surprising, moving estimates of delay time can be traced back to controller staffing problems and fatigue issues. (The tempting part relates back to the report issued yesterday by FAA's National Airspace System Safety Review Team, organized in the context of FAA's Safety Summit earlier this year.)

[Chesty Morgan]

So - even if they could have re-arranged the line-up of flight operations in sequence, that does not mean they were required to do such re-arrangimg, or even that they should have done so.
Nope, that is exactly what ATC are there to do.

[WHBM]

I'm looking in the FAA AIP for San Francisco. Full set of references to ILS on runways, with their identification codes. No reference to this not being available at certain times at all.

Is there a NOTAM saying this ILS will not be provided if requested ?

[ATC Watcher]

But ATC Watcher, isn't one of PukinDog's main points that the Luft. captain could have complied with the visual separation task despite the SOP against visual approach?

No, the LH SOP is not against visual approaches is about maintaining visual separation , 2 different things. LH SOP said only in daylight, so Capt has no discretion here but to follow his SOP.
I. To the traveling public, it looks like a situation in which controllers had some sizable degree of discretion. So - even if they could have re-arranged the line-up of flight operations in sequence, that does not mean they were required to do such re-arrangimg, or even that they should have done so.
again no,, no sizable degree of discretion , a controller has to accommodate a pilot legitim request, And he was initially planning to do so , but it escalated and in the end forced him to divert. hence this discussion . We are all trained to re-arrange sequence, we always do so after a go around for instance.
By the way, NTSB Chair tells a Senate Committee to worry all over again about inadequate controller staffing levels and prevalence of fatigue issues. Does that not support the need to acknowledge significant controller discretion in handling exactly this kind of situation?
It may look that way but in fact this delegation of responsibility for separation is increasing workload as the number of aircraft close to each other has increased to the point where taking over in case of a mishap by one of the aircraft is almost nil. It is the number of aircraft you handle and have on the frequency that you have to monitor that is causing the workload and fatigue. Not the procedure in itself. If you are short on staff and fatigued, you want aircraft on published instrument arrivals well separated from each other , separated by a few NM, not laterally by hundreds of feet .
Plus as mentioned correctly by Request Orbit ,in class B airspace that procedure does not relieve the controller separation responsibilities , and since you are a lawyer, in case of a fatal mishap here, who do you think the Prosecutor will go after ?

@WHBM : .​​​​​​​Is there a NOTAM saying this ILS will not be provided if requested ?
excellent question , but I guess we know the answer to that one.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Thanks for all the clarifications .... corrections of my own misunderstandings. Perhaps the diversion of the thread will help someone else who also actually wasn't ready to particpate intelligently.

I follow your logic (ATC W) about a potential prosecution on those facts, although if there's precedent for it in United States I admit I'm not aware of it.

[doolay]

No, the LH SOP is not against visual approaches is about maintaining visual separation , 2 different things. LH SOP said only in daylight, so Capt has no discretion here but to follow his SOP.

Monday morning Armchair quarterbacking here purely in the interest of learning and avoiding a situation like this in future.

Most airline SOPS have a statement written within something along the lines of-The Captain has the discretion to amend/ignore/adjust the SOPS if she/he feels it is in the interest of safety.

I feel in this instance perhaps if they had just accepted the approach and landed and then submitted a Safety Report to their Company with the reasons why they did it-Much safer to land at a familiar airport, diverting is making a long day to begin with even longer and more fatiguing, zero chance of pax aggravation issues if they land at their destination...the list goes on.

At the end of the day LH would want their paying passengers in SFO not OAK. So, if it is safe-go against the SOPS (as we all have on rare occasions), file a report, so there is a written record, have those tea and biscuits with the Chief Pilot (he'll probably give you a minor bollocking, and then quietly thank you for landing at the filed destination), discuss changes to the Company's visual approach procedures, and move on to your next flight.

[421dog]

Just out of curiosity, when it was clear that a stalemate was occurring, would it not have been possible to divert to Oakland, while asking for a slot that met the sop and would not cause the crew to go beyond their hours, and screw up the arrivals and make the 20-30 min flight (including the approach) from across the bay?
Seems like that would have been a win-win

[421dog]

After putting on enough gas to complete the mission…

[Sailvi767]

Monday morning Armchair quarterbacking here purely in the interest of learning and avoiding a situation like this in future.

Most airline SOPS have a statement written within something along the lines of-The Captain has the discretion to amend/ignore/adjust the SOPS if she/he feels it is in the interest of safety.

I feel in this instance perhaps if they had just accepted the approach and landed and then submitted a Safety Report to their Company with the reasons why they did it-Much safer to land at a familiar airport, diverting is making a long day to begin with even longer and more fatiguing, zero chance of pax aggravation issues if they land at their destination...the list goes on.

At the end of the day LH would want their paying passengers in SFO not OAK. So, if it is safe-go against the SOPS (as we all have on rare occasions), file a report, so there is a written record, have those tea and biscuits with the Chief Pilot (he'll probably give you a minor bollocking, and then quietly thank you for landing at the filed destination), discuss changes to the Company's visual approach procedures, and move on to your next flight.

I am still trying to wrap my head around the crew duty day if this is about safety. Most airlines report 90 minutes prior for an international flight. 12.5 flight hours puts the day at 14. 2 hour delay leaving FRA and 2 hours on the ground at OAK puts them at 18 hours before departing OAK. How the pilot in command justified a departure at that point is hard to understand and illegal under under US rest rules.

[Check Airman]

I am still trying to wrap my head around the crew duty day if this is about safety. Most airlines report 90 minutes prior for an international flight. 12.5 flight hours puts the day at 14. 2 hour delay leaving FRA and 2 hours on the ground at OAK puts them at 18 hours before departing OAK. How the pilot in command justified a departure at that point is hard to understand and illegal under under US rest rules.


Their rest rules are obviously different. Under 117, you could accomplish this with a 19 hr FDP if there are 4 pilots. It would be illegal with only 3 pilots though. 3 or 4 pilots, I'd have probably been done after setting the brakes in OAK.

[Check Airman]

Most airline SOPS have a statement written within something along the lines of-The Captain has the discretion to amend/ignore/adjust the SOPS if she/he feels it is in the interest of safety.

I feel in this instance perhaps if they had just accepted the approach and landed and then submitted a Safety Report to their Company with the reasons why they did it-Much safer to land at a familiar airport, diverting is making a long day to begin with even longer and more fatiguing, zero chance of pax aggravation issues if they land at their destination...the list goes on.


Our safety people wouldn't care for that at all. If he'd exercised his authority after fuel became critical, that'd be fine, but to do it right off the bat would probably generate a phone call with some follow-up questions.

[Request Orbit]

I am still trying to wrap my head around the crew duty day if this is about safety. Most airlines report 90 minutes prior for an international flight. 12.5 flight hours puts the day at 14. 2 hour delay leaving FRA and 2 hours on the ground at OAK puts them at 18 hours before departing OAK. How the pilot in command justified a departure at that point is hard to understand and illegal under under US rest rules.

Since you’ve brought up the subject of rest, a bit of slightly off-topic background. Our standard is 6 on/4 off (6/3 for non-H24 units). The US standard is 5/2, however a lot of units are so short of staff they have a mandatory rostered overtime on day 6, so they’re effectively doing 6/1. This would break a whole heap of our rules in the way it’s rostered, but the biggest one is 3 periods of at least 54 consecutive hours off in any 30-day rolling period. Without going sick, there’s no way for them to even get a single 54-hour rest period, let alone 3 every 30 days. I’ve no idea if Norcal is on 6/1, and it doesn’t appear to directly impact this event, but I’d tend to be far more worried about how much rest the average US ATCO has had in the previous 12 months, than the DLH pilot going a couple of hours over in this case.

If you want I can breakdown all the different ways “the rattler” roster they get would break our rest rules (including finishing a morning shift at 3pm then back for a night shift the same day…)

[marcus1290]

At the end of the day LH would want their paying passengers in SFO not OAK. So, if it is safe-go against the SOPS (as we all have on rare occasions), file a report, so there is a written record, have those tea and biscuits with the Chief Pilot (he'll probably give you a minor bollocking, and then quietly thank you for landing at the filed destination), discuss changes to the Company's visual approach procedures, and move on to your next flight.

If you're actively putting the commercial interests of your airline ahead of safety, and accepting that your actions will result in tea and biscuits with the Chief Pilot, you seriously need to consider how you're operating!

Without knowing any details of LH operations, if they prohibit visual approaches at night, I think credit is due to the operating crew for not being forced into an approach they didn't want to do. People may have an opinion that a commercial pilot should be able to shoot a visual, but that is neither here not there. A rushed, unbriefed approach, at night, after what I can assume is a long duty while possibly feeling the affects of fatigue is not where you want to be. So for me - credit to the flight deck for not doing something they were uncomfortable with.

In relation to how ATC handled it, some serious questions need to be asked. The LH crew made ATC aware very early on that they were requesting an ILS, so why wasn't this provided? Was the ILS unserviceable and on the ATIS? Surely a large airport like SFO has other approaches available? Why is a visual approach at night the only option to the crew particularly when the weather wasn't exactly "visual approach" weather? Why are ATC dictating what flight crew do with their aircraft?

This is my opinion - the FAA needs a complete overhaul of all its operating procedures from light aircraft, to RT, to ATC and aerodrome operations. How many catastrophic near misses has there been this year alone with runway incursions, aircraft trying to land on occupied runways in LVPs and general poor airmanship. I think it's only a matter of time, unfortunately.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Regarding FAA programming (or at least bureaucratic) response:

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-takes-actions-address-independent-safety-review-teams-recommendations

Item from FAA website includes link to very recent National Airspace System Safety Review Team report, as well as other FAA initiatives. (Provided here without further comment, cynical or otherwise, about effectiveness, or even relevance, given Congressional and political dysfunction rampant in United States.)

[CVividasku]

But hey, Lufthansa. I remember late one night in Riyadh Lufthansa holding short of a runway for at least 30 minutes blocking 5 or 6 other aircraft because the stop bar lights had malfunctioned and were stuck ON. No aircraft inbound for that runway and the excited controller tried telling, and eventually yelling, that he was cleared to cross the lights because they were broken. Yet still, being the captain of an established international air carrier, he refused, no doubt because despite the utter absence of inbound traffic and the controllers directives, it was in his SOPs. Not being able to taxi forward, turn around, or get out of the way, it was quite a mess for those stuck behind him who I'm sure were dropping some F-bombs themselves, just not on the radio. Happily, we avoided by launching off the other runway which, by necessity, they began using for departures. I don't know how long they all ended up sitting, but I suppose they stayed right where they were at until someone in a truck showed up to cut a wire or, more likely, smashed the lights to the OFF position with a hammer.
I would have sent a tow truck to tow the plane by force :ugh:
Maybe, LH did a risk-benefit/risk mitigation analysis and concluded it is safer not to do visuals at night? Or, LH may not have the FAA OpSpecs for night visuals in the US? Personally, I find it difficult to judge distances to other traffic and terrain/obstacles at night. But maybe that´s just me.

Crossair 3597 comes to mind, as well. Technically not a visual approach but the crew followed visual cues at night.

But yeah the PM´s cocky attitude seems to have aggravated the problem. There was a female voice later on. No idea if it was the F/O or PIC initially. I reckon, it comes down to leadership and CRM to avoid putting yourself in a disadvantaged position. I am sure the incidence will be a case study for LH and a subject during future CRM trainings.
Crossair 3597 has nothing to do with visual approaches at night.
The captain was someone know for his terrible technique of diving to the ground to get visual references. They were in IMC during this approach.
​​​​​​​

[hans brinker]

Just some added info for people unfamiliar with how most of these visual approaches are done:
There is the General aviation Visual Approach, were the center controller clears you direct to the airport, you see the field, inform ATC, he cancels ATC services, you find your own way to the airport, looking and avoiding other traffic on your own. That is not what SFO approach wanted from DLH.
For 121, scheduled passenger flights to big airports, everyone is vectored/altitude/speed controlled by ATC, until on a reasonable heading to intercept the straight in approach you will use to back-up the visual. You call the field in sight, and intercept the normal LOC/CRS followed by the GS/GP. The reason for the visual is things like reduced spacing,or less workload for controllers. In SFO it is because the parallel runways are quite close, so in order to use both simultaneously, without having to use PRM/SOIA approaches (more dangerous in my opinion), they use "visual" approaches. I firmly believe ATC should have worked with DLH better. But I am equally convinced DLH should have made an exception for the way these approaches are conducted at major US airports. When I flew in the EU, in night VMC we were not allowed to go below the MSA/MDA/MAA/MOCA/MEA/MVA. That makes sense. The DLH SOP does not.

[doolay]

A rushed, unbriefed approach, at night, after what I can assume is a long duty while possibly feeling the affects of fatigue is not where you want to be.

EXACTLY! And this is what they ended up doing going into OAK. To complicate things, it would be an unfamiliar airport to add an additional threat to their already long day. And after landing now they have to deal with refueling, loadsheets, performance calculations and FM programming while being very fatigued.

If you're actively putting the commercial interests of your airline ahead of safety,

Nope, I wrote, if it is safe-go against the SOPS (as we all have on rare occasions)

And the reason I wrote this is because it is far safer to shoot a very routine, radar vectored Approach onto an ILS that, at SFO for convenience, is referred to as a 'visual approach', than to divert to an unfamiliar airport, at night, with all the added stress and challenges that diversions always provide.

I would absolutely welcome tea and biscuits with the Boss, as it provides a great opportunity to bring to management's attention these sort of anomalies that show up from time to time on the line.

Let me asked you this: what would they have done differently because this was a visual approach as opposed to an ILS? The answer is nothing. Nothing different. They receive a very nice RV to intercept an ILS. They fly the ILS and then they land. How did NOT accepting this 'visual' approach at SFO make the operation SAFER?

[PukinDog]

Last remark from PunkinDog on TCAS :

Both IFALPA and us fought hard on the ICAO FANS in the 90s.to keep TCAS where it belongs , a last minute anti collision system . It is not a separation tool and due to its poor azimuth definition ( +/- 11 degrees) it cannot be used for visual Aquisition. In my days when we issued a conditional clearance involving another aircraft and passed traffic info and the pilot replied, " we've got it on TCAS" we always replied, " fine ,but I need you to identifying visually this one ,by looking out of the window.
Remember that the one you see on TCAS might not be the one I am talking about.
.

Reminder noted, but I believe anyone who's flown in the US outside Class A -> STAR -> Class B/C -> SID -> Class A understands that there's a whole lotta aircraft out that aren't the merely ones ATC tells us about, or is even talking to, or even has a transponder or ADS-B that ATC or our TCAS can see. The concept is well-ingrained and why FAA regs require looking outside to try and visually acquire traffic anytime flight conditions permit.

I hope nothing I wrote implied that TCAS be used as a separation tool. That would be like running a canyon high speed, low-level, and blind using a weather radar in ground mapping mode. It won't end well. I don't know any pilot that isn't aware of TCAS's limitations and inaccuracies between display vs the visual reality outside; we use it every day and it's been around for 30 years.

Only RAs should result in maneuvering, and that's been the case since US carriers were equipped with them by 91/93. I'm not sure who you were lobbying hard against in the 90's. UK/Europe was a late TCAS adopter in 2000 after which, for awhile anyway, there was still debate and training differences as to whether RAs took precedence over conflicting ATC instructions as the 2002 midair exposed. Hopefully, everyone is on the same page now.

TCAS display as a substitute for visual acquisition...absolutely not, of course. I know my long post is eye-glazing, but that is exactly the point for much of it. TCAS was the first thing on the list I mentioned those things that aren't a substitutes to acquiring traffic visually, whether the aircraft has been pointed out by ATC or not.

What I did say was that it's an aid that assists visual acquisition by directing attention to sectors of sky for scanning. That is literally the stated purpose of having Proximate, Unidentified, and Traffic Advisory symbols with relative altitudes shown on the display, with the TA alert designed to reduce the startle factor and response time if an RA occurs. Mere mortals can't tirelessly focus on everything everywhere all at once and we must prioritize duties and attention according to the situation. In the case of SFO when they're conducting parallel visuals the traffic call from ATC will usually come between the vector for intercept and clearance to fly the published Visual approach and the before intercept. If that traffic call is the first time someone looks outside to attempt visual acquisition of the aircraft they'll pair up with...because you know you'll be pairing up with someone...he/she might want to reconsider his/her priorities.

The problem isn't that the other aircraft ATC wants you to see can't be seen (at that point on the SFO visual it easily can be). The problem is that ATC has called out 1 aircraft but there may be 3 or 4 aircraft easily in view from the cockpit window, and if the traffic is low perhaps some ground lights could also confuse. The process of the brain differentiating between things one sees and compensating begins when first looking outside, so maybe the best time to begin that process isn't at 180 kts converging with the other aircraft when someone also needs to be minding the store confirming that the intercept is happening when it should. Life gets a lot easier if one begins to get the SA picture beforehand and allow the brain more time to process and differentiate in order to avoid what could otherwise be an initially-confusing picture later.

Visually mis-identifying aircraft has always been an issue long before the advent of TCAS, which in my opinion has reduced the likelihood. Pilots are fine with azimuth but estimates vary greatly when it comes to judging altitude differences relative to one's own, especially over slant range distances. At night you're looking for aircraft lighting against what may be a background of lights with all sorts of brightness, colours, and flashiness. Or it could be a hazy day with low sun in your eyes and the vis from where one sits is far more restricted than anything being reported. So if ATC calls out 1 aircraft but TCAS is showing 3 in that sector in close proximity and minimum vertical spacing (perhaps just 500" if 1 is VFR) your brain already accepts that the first 1 you spot visually may not be the one ATC wants you to identify so you continue to scan.

Low aspect targets are more difficult to see until close-in and if they're hot there's less time to visually acquire. Constant bearing crossing traffic has little or no relative motion. When ATC gives a traffic position it's not BRA but rather a Clock Bearing relative to flight path, not relative to aircraft heading, so unless there's zero x-wind component the traffic can possibly be positioned 1 or 2 clock sectors off. In daily use, I doubt there's anyone who doesn't reference the no-conflict Proximate Traffic targets and try to spot them, and in this way through familiarity makes one better at visually judging relative altitudes and slant range distances air-to-air because you have something inside the cockpit displaying their altitude.

Until ADS-B w/CPDLC is universally adopted, all aircraft equipped, and always-working worldwide, the TCAS info displayed to the crew will always be used for situational awareness monitor proximate traffic and, as such, sometimes for positioning where surveillance and/or ATC is sketchy or non-existent; there's still wake turbulence at altitude that may need offsetting from, the occasional oncoming traffic that's uncomfortably at or near your altitude that should be monitored, or CBs that need deviating around along everyone else having the same idea.

While TCAS certainly has its limitations it's not your grandpa's Pong game either, and It's better to have a slightly imperfect picture of those around you than no picture at all. In those places where ATC does exist but adhere to a funny, aviation-variation of the "Less is More" philosophy that prevents them from advising you of overtaking and/or nearby traffic because "You won't be able to miss seeing it soon anyway" or perhaps the gov doesn't have the funds to go around replacing worn-out ATC PTT switches, this also applies.

"We have him on TCAS", yes, yes, absolutely agree. An entirely useless response to a traffic call that does nothing but create uncertainly with the Controller (and everyone else) as to whether the pilot is looking outside for the traffic or not. I'm glad you brought it up, and perhaps we can all agree now's the time to establish a worldwide system of fining any pilot $500 (or pro crew $500 per head) for uttering it on the radio, paid into a fund that will be used for a yearly Pilot/Controller bash somewhere on neutral ground; a chartered 250' Feadship party boat floating on the Caribbean, for instance.

In fact, since the Authorities everywhere aren't doing anything about it and in the interests of getting the biggest boat possible, there should be an entire list of useless, annoying, and offending transmissions and their associated fines, the amount for each commensurate to its annoyance level. Something like;

1) We have him on TCAS ($500)
2) F*** ($1)
3) You have a stuck Mic ($1500 If repeated, + $5000)
4) Fully ready ($480)
5) ____ on the meter ($975)
6) Charlie Charlie ($ 328)
7) You're on Guard!!! ($ 2,500 + 3 Anger Management classes + 5-year Party Boat ban)
8) Animal noises (Entire estate + Death)
9) etc.
10) etc.

[UnderneathTheRadar]

My reading of the radio comms isn’t that LHA can’t do the visual at night, they just can’t do the separation with other traffic at night. I know that first up he says he can’t do the visual approach but I think that may be a language issue as he later says that SPECIFICALLY it’s the visual separation that’s forbidden. Granted he requests a standard ILS but maybe that’s just a way of saying don’t give me the dependent visual approaches.

There are two related but different parts to this:
1. Visual approach - can he/can’t he? I’d be surprised if LHA ban it at night (but maybe they have) as they still need to arrive into JFK, SFO etc
2. Maintaining visual separation with another aircraft - he says he definitely can’t.

My suspicion (will never know) is that what happened was:
1. LHA forgot to/didn’t give NORCAL enough notice that they needed special handling and were unclear about what the actual SOP prevented them from doing. From the radio it sounds like they were well into the arrival when it first came up
2. If they’d been clear that they couldn’t do the visual separation at night then NORCAL could have simply put them in the queue without the second aircraft on the parallel and all would have been fine - 1 landing slot lost
3. If they insisted they needed the ILS then with enough notice the sequence wouldn’t have been badly affected - maybe a total cost of 3 slots
4. By leaving it so late to advise, if the arrival queue was as long as it can be and 2-3 spots had to be found then that’s an unrealistic expectation for NORCAL to reorganise or slow the whole sequence or to take 2-3 aircraft out of the sequence to fit LHA in. Instead of holding, should have vectored him to the end of the sequence and been able give an accurate track miles figure instead of vague holding times.


3.

[NoelEvans]

My understanding is that SFO and LHR have about the same number of average daily movements. (Is that correct?)

I have never heard a 'heavy' required to do any visual spacing at LHR, especially at night.

Why can they cope and SFO cannot?

[pax2908]

One Other side of this story, which was not really discussed in detail, is How Exactly LH came to forbid pilots to take responsibility for visual separation (under certain conditions).

[172_driver]

My understanding is that SFO and LHR have about the same number of average daily movements. (Is that correct?)

I have never heard a 'heavy' required to do any visual spacing at LHR, especially at night.

Why can they cope and SFO cannot?

SFO has two tightly spaced runways. I have never had parallel approaches into LHR. Perhaps on the odd occassion it happens, but not regularly. At arrival peak there can be significant holding into LHR though.

Both places has great ATC working the traffic and they seem to the best with the cards they've been delt.

[BFSGrad]

Reading through the later comments, my impression is that a few commenters have not watched the video in post #71, which provides an unofficial ATC explanation of this incident. According to that source, LH received an appropriate level of ATC service given LH's operational limitations (no visual sep) and routine priority.

Regarding whether ILS approaches were available, PAL104 requested and was given the ILS 28L approach. It appears that NorCal was able to accommodate this ILS request because spacing just happened to work out at that point in time relative to other arrivals in queue.

Regarding Euro carriers not accepting visual sep at night, Virgin 14R accepted maintaining visual sep to 28R.

Several commenters have stated that NorCal should have just “created” the necessary slot for LH, without specifying how this was to be done. From the post #71 video, appears two options were available to make this happen: (1) knock one or more aircraft out of the arrival path to create the required spacing for a LH ILS, or (2) take many aircraft off of the published arrival (i.e., vectors) to add track distance to create the space. The source in post #71 said neither of these was a a viable option given LH’s routine priority. What is not clear is why, after initially telling LH that his ILS request would cause “extended delays,” NorCal was unable to give LH a firm delay time to allow for fuel planning.

What this incident really highlights is the need for SFO to add capacity with a new, properly spaced runway (not green, ain’t gonna happen) or for the airlines to limit slots during peak times (hub & spoke, ain’t gonna happen). Thus, here we are.

[blind pew]

Or to tank a bit more fuel.

[Qbix]

these utter muppets at lufthansa do even the radio the other way around.
I am so glad to see ATC showing them their place.
Saying f**** on the radio is just beyond any standards. maybe over Germany can say those words as it seems he was quite relaxed throwing that in a foreign FIR.
I wonder if his low modulated voice kept the same tone when sent to his utter embarrassment diversion.
Well done SFC ATC !! 👍

[fleigle]

There is no room at SFO to add another appropriately spaced runway, being “ green” has nothing to do with it.

[tdracer]

There is no room at SFO to add another appropriately spaced runway, being “ green” has nothing to do with it.
Exactly! People tend to forget that many of these airports have been there for 80 or 90 years. Out in the boondock's when they were built, but now completely surrounded by urban development making any runway expansion somewhere between horrendous expensive and impossible. When they added a runway at SeaTac (although technically a third runway, it was really just a second runway far enough away that they could use two runways for ILS at the same time), the literally had to extend the plateau that the airport was built on by a huge amount (and at tremendous cost) - rather controversial since there is now a big drop-off if you depart the new runway to the west so potentially turning what would have been an embarrassment into a catastrophe).
In Denver, the old Stapleton airport was well out of town in the 60's, but by the 1980's it was surrounded with no room to expand. They had to spend $billions to build DIA from scratch way east of Denver to provide room for expansion (much of the old Stapleton airport is now a shopping mall).

[BFSGrad]

Exactly! People tend to forget that many of these airports have been there for 80 or 90 years. Out in the boondock's when they were built, but now completely surrounded by urban development making any runway expansion somewhere between horrendous expensive and impossible.
tdr, you are usually on point. But not this time. The two examples you cite are (were) land-locked airports, which certainly present expansion challenges. That is not the case with SFO as San Francisco Bay presents almost unlimited potential for expansion. In fact a significant portion (50%?) of the existing SFO footprint is built on bay fill. Oakland’s long runway is built on bay fill as are portions of the various military facilities along SF Bay.

The technology for such expansion is well established; e.g., HNL reef runway, Hong Kong, Chubu, etc. Plans for this type of expansion at SFO were floated in the 90s with the #1 obstacle being environmental groups. If the bay area governments can toss a couple $B at new sports stadiums, they can certainly pony up some dollars for a new SFO runway. What is lacking is the political will to buck the greenies.

[MarcK]

The technology for such expansion is well established; e.g., HNL reef runway, Hong Kong, Chubu, etc. Plans for this type of expansion at SFO were floated in the 90s with the #1 obstacle being environmental groups. If the bay area governments can toss a couple $B at new sports stadiums, they can certainly pony up some dollars for a new SFO runway. What is lacking is the political will to buck the greenies.
More than greenies, there's already a large anti-noise group in place. Why should non-pilots want a new runway, which would only increase the noise due to more operations? I'm sure that most bay-area residents wouldn't mind if LH moved their operation to a less noise sensitive area -- like Fresno.

[tdracer]

The technology for such expansion is well established; e.g., HNL reef runway, Hong Kong, Chubu, etc. Plans for this type of expansion at SFO were floated in the 90s with the #1 obstacle being environmental groups. If the bay area governments can toss a couple $B at new sports stadiums, they can certainly pony up some dollars for a new SFO runway. What is lacking is the political will to buck the greenies.

Bucking the greenies and other environmental groups is expensive - usually extremely expensive, and getting the needed environmental plans and permissions often takes decades - and even once approved, you can usually count on numerous more lawsuits and challenges - all of which cost time and money. Filling in sensitive wetlands to create new land has become an environmental mine field. This being the California Bay Area means the environment groups have outsized influence.
Concerns over tiny fish most people have never heard of have already shut down $billions in agricultural output by limiting the water available to grow food. Increasing the footprint of SFO so more carbon spewing aircraft can land in there is going to be a political nightmare in hugely 'progressive' California.

[Catwalk Dweller]

PukinDog (post #11):

Very succinctly explained; thank you!

[NoelEvans]

SFO has two tightly spaced runways. I have never had parallel approaches into LHR. Perhaps on the odd occassion it happens, but not regularly. At arrival peak there can be significant holding into LHR though.

Both places has great ATC working the traffic and they seem to the best with the cards they've been delt.
The runways at LHR are too close (just!) for parallel approaches, so you won't get parallel approaches there. (If any 'appear' to be parallel, that is simply for other operational 'convenience' but the spacing will still be the same as if on the same approach.) The runways at LHR are about twice as far apart as those at SFO?

Approaches into LHR are on the ILS. Even when I flew into there in a Cessna 310 (with an 'Ambulance' callsign!) in CAVOK during the early morning 'rush', it was an ILS approach. I have flown into there many times in a 'regional jet' and every approach in all conditions was an ILS. Yes, there can be some holding and if I remember correctly, LHR required that 20 mins holding fuel should be available even if 'no delays' were expected. Why doesn't SFO stipulate the same?

I have also flown many approaches into AMS (before and after the new 'Voor Politieke Bedoel' -- the ILS ident! -- runway!) at all times of the day (and night!). It was always an ILS unless a visual approach was offered to us for our convenience (with us being 'considered local' operators) and all those that I remember were in good visibility and daytime.

(The controllers at LHR and AMS are the best that I have worked with.)

From what I read on here, SFO appears to be 'a large GA airfield' that has big airliners flying into it!

[PukinDog]

The runways at LHR are too close (just!) for parallel approaches, so you won't get parallel approaches there. (If any 'appear' to be parallel, that is simply for other operational 'convenience' but the spacing will still be the same as if on the same approach.) The runways at LHR are about twice as far apart as those at SFO?

Approaches into LHR are on the ILS. Even when I flew into there in a Cessna 310 (with an 'Ambulance' callsign!) in CAVOK during the early morning 'rush', it was an ILS approach. I have flown into there many times in a 'regional jet' and every approach in all conditions was an ILS. Yes, there can be some holding and if I remember correctly, LHR required that 20 mins holding fuel should be available even if 'no delays' were expected. Why doesn't SFO stipulate the same?

I have also flown many approaches into AMS (before and after the new 'Voor Politieke Bedoel' -- the ILS ident! -- runway!) at all times of the day (and night!). It was always an ILS unless a visual approach was offered to us for our convenience (with us being 'considered local' operators) and all those that I remember were in good visibility and daytime.

(The controllers at LHR and AMS are the best that I have worked with.)

From what I read on here, SFO appears to be 'a large GA airfield' that has big airliners flying into it!

SFO and LHR/AMS aren't really comparable.

Parallel runway separation: SFO: 750' LRH: 4600' (about 6 X the distance) AMS: Practically separate airports.

I can see how from reading some of this that SFO seems like a "big GA airport with airliners flying into it but it's really not.

Although the 757's are the largest allowed, for the sake of PPRuNe its good they don't have Int'l flights into DCA. Someone might have to fly the River Visual rwy 19 then comment about the maneuvering while skirting a couple prohibited areas along the way. If this SFO thing is an indicator, the ensuing uproar would melt this website down within 24 hours.

[Check Airman]

SFO and LHR/AMS aren't really comparable.

Parallel runway separation: SFO: 750' LRH: 4600' (about 6 X the distance) AMS: Practically separate airports.

I can see how from reading some of this that SFO seems like a "big GA airport with airliners flying into it but it's really not.

Although the 757's are the largest allowed, for the sake of PPRuNe it’s good they don't have Int'l flights into DCA. Someone might have to fly the River Visual rwy 19 then comment about the maneuvering while skirting a couple prohibited areas along the way. If this SFO thing is an indicator, the ensuing uproar would melt this website down within 24 hours.

The river visual is heaps of fun :)

I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to understand the obsession with flying an ILS on a VFR night…

[Sailvi767]

My understanding is that SFO and LHR have about the same number of average daily movements. (Is that correct?)

I have never heard a 'heavy' required to do any visual spacing at LHR, especially at night.

Why can they cope and SFO cannot?

SFO has about 1300 arrivals a day. LHR about 650. That’s not about the same. It’s substantially different.

[Request Orbit]

Reading through the later comments, my impression is that a few commenters have not watched the video in post #71, which provides an unofficial ATC explanation of this incident. According to that source, LH received an appropriate level of ATC service given LH's operational limitations (no visual sep) and routine priority.

Regarding whether ILS approaches were available, PAL104 requested and was given the ILS 28L approach. It appears that NorCal was able to accommodate this ILS request because spacing just happened to work out at that point in time relative to other arrivals in queue.

I’ve watched that video, and disagree wholeheartedly that they were given an appropriate level of service, whatever it claims. It was not treated with “routine priority”, it was dumped down the order behind aircraft that turned up 30 minutes+ after it, and basically treated as a Cat. Z with zero priority. It made a perfectly reasonable request to fly a published instrument approach, that so far as I can tell wasn’t notified anywhere as being unavailable. They knew it was going to be inconvenient and were expecting some delay.

No one has stated how they’d create the gap because it’s such a routine part of the job. If there was a go-around they’re not going to delay it for another hour because “the sequence is already built”, likewise if the DLH had actually declared an emergency you’d like to think it would have been given a fairly expedient approach. One of the comments in the video you reference was: “We aren’t going to vector 40 aircraft and take them off the arrival, and assign speeds and headings and introduce more risk to those passengers and pilots in order to prioritize a special request.”

Firstly, no ATCO I know would routinely describe any heading or speed to an aircraft as inherently dangerous/risky. Assigning safe headings and speeds is the job! Anyone with that attitude wouldn’t be given a radar license. Secondly, it highlights that a request for a published instrument approach is deemed a “special request”. Having to apply standard separation in Class B should never need to be deemed a special request. Ref. the PAL104: if I only accommodated requests that didn’t inconvenience me in any way, I wouldn’t expect to keep my job for long. If the ILS requirement is so special and the sequence is so set-in-stone you must know exactly where they can eventually fit and be able to give an accurate EAT. The reluctance to do this suggests to me they knew they should be fitting it in, but for whatever reason - be it personal capacity, airspace, ability or anything else - it didn’t happen. For that video to claim the unit was happy with how the controller handled it, given the complete butchering of keeping the delay updated, suggests this is culturally accepted.

I’m not a pilot so I can’t comment on whether the DLH SOP is sensible or required in the first place, which seems to be where most of the taking sides against the DLH seems to come from, nor add anything to that side of the debate. Once the requirement was stated (and as an aside, I wouldn’t consider passing 14000ft particularly late notice) I feel more qualified to contribute. I would add that usually with these situations, pilots take the side of the pilot and ATC take the side of ATC. From my reading of the comments, pretty much everyone on the ATC side is asking questions about how ATC handled it, and specifically why such a meal was made of something that should be straightforward.

[172_driver]

From my reading of the comments, pretty much everyone on the ATC side is asking questions about how ATC handled it, and specifically why such a meal was made of something that should be straightforward.

My 'siding' is merely an observation having operated in the US for a couple of years (SoCal and a little NorCal), the national airspace system is very flexible (especially for GA) but not good for anyone that underperforms. Some ATC could be assholes and I think it came down to workload and being close to maxed out. Many a times you switched freq but there was no opportunity to check in, just wait until being called. I can sympathize with ATC not wanting to explain everything on air. (Though as a pilot I would be very glad for an expected delay, even if unnecessairly conservative.)

Then there is the "maintain visual separation" which is poorly understood by those who haven't operated there. On IFR practice runs we often had to cancel IFR to relieve ATC of some separation responsibilities, yet they would treat us as IFR. It was just good cooperation. Had I insisted on staying IFR we wouldn't get the job done. In this case Lufthansa wouldn't exactly cancel IFR, but still help ATC out with separation.

[Request Orbit]

My 'siding' is merely an observation having operated in the US for a couple of years (SoCal and a little NorCal), the national airspace system is very flexible (especially for GA) but not good for anyone that underperforms. Some ATC could be assholes and I think it came down to workload and being close to maxed out. Many a times you switched freq but there was no opportunity to check in, just wait until being called. I can sympathize with ATC not wanting to explain everything on air. (Though as a pilot I would be very glad for an expected delay, even if unnecessairly conservative.)

Then there is the "maintain visual separation" which is poorly understood by those who haven't operated there. On IFR practice runs we often had to cancel IFR to relieve ATC of some separation responsibilities, yet they would treat us as IFR. It was just good cooperation. Had I insisted on staying IFR we wouldn't get the job done. In this case Lufthansa wouldn't exactly cancel IFR, but still help ATC out with separation.

My use of “sides” is far too black and white for something that is obviously a lot more nuanced so appreciate that sentiment. Separation is a pretty defining characteristic of air traffic, and when it comes to IFR traffic is very much an ATC responsibility inside controlled airspace. If you can delegate that to pilots to keep things moving at times, great. If the whole thing falls apart if a single pilot says no, not great. It is not the pilots responsibility. If saying no results in that situation, it’s bad airspace/sectorisation/training/procedure design. We’re going to declare the airspace Class B and publish instrument procedures, but don’t dare actually ask us to provide the level of service that implies.

[NoelEvans]

SFO has about 1300 arrivals a day. LHR about 650. That’s not about the same. It’s substantially different.The info I had for LHR gave movements so, yes, that is like comparing chalk and cheeses. I asked "Is that correct?" and you answered. Thank you!

... We’re going to declare the airspace Class B and publish instrument procedures, but don’t dare actually ask us to provide the level of service that implies.Seems to sum this situation up! And the Lufthansa SOPs simply demand "the level of service that implies".

How does SFO cope when the weather is down to Cat I (or lower!) conditions? (LHR 'stumbles' when it gets below Cat I and increased approach spacing is needed, but copes quite well in Cat I.)

[Phenom 300]

Didn't miss the point. It just didn't matter and the result would have been the same. If it's saturated, SFO isn't going to shut down the stream to the parallel runway and slow his own down just so Lufthansa can have his ILS.

And how do we even know this established international carrier captain is even well-versed in his own Company's SOPs? After all and I may be wrong, but I doubt the Lufthansa Radiotelephony Phraseology Section of their RT SOPs has the note: "Don't say "F***" on the radio, except when outside EASA Airspace".

But hey, Lufthansa. I remember late one night in Riyadh Lufthansa holding short of a runway for at least 30 minutes blocking 5 or 6 other aircraft because the stop bar lights had malfunctioned and were stuck ON. No aircraft inbound for that runway and the excited controller tried telling, and eventually yelling, that he was cleared to cross the lights because they were broken. Yet still, being the captain of an established international air carrier, he refused, no doubt because despite the utter absence of inbound traffic and the controllers directives, it was in his SOPs. Not being able to taxi forward, turn around, or get out of the way, it was quite a mess for those stuck behind him who I'm sure were dropping some F-bombs themselves, just not on the radio. Happily, we avoided by launching off the other runway which, by necessity, they began using for departures. I don't know how long they all ended up sitting, but I suppose they stayed right where they were at until someone in a truck showed up to cut a wire or, more likely, smashed the lights to the OFF position with a hammer.

I would have gone crazy in your situation. Still, forever broken stop bars pilots didn’t care about any more were one of the reasons for the SAS SK 686 accident 2001 in Milano.

[Check Airman]

How does SFO cope when the weather is down to Cat I (or lower!) conditions? (LHR 'stumbles' when it gets below Cat I and increased approach spacing is needed, but copes quite well in Cat I.)

When the weather goes down, there are delays. We start to get slot times, or we’re just held on the ground (seemingly) indefinitely.

[Phenom 300]

Reminder noted, but I believe anyone who's flown in the US outside Class A -> STAR -> Class B/C -> SID -> Class A understands that there's a whole lotta aircraft out that aren't the merely ones ATC tells us about, or is even talking to, or even has a transponder or ADS-B that ATC or our TCAS can see. The concept is well-ingrained and why FAA regs require looking outside to try and visually acquire traffic anytime flight conditions permit.

I hope nothing I wrote implied that TCAS be used as a separation tool. That would be like running a canyon high speed, low-level, and blind using a weather radar in ground mapping mode. It won't end well. I don't know any pilot that isn't aware of TCAS's limitations and inaccuracies between display vs the visual reality outside; we use it every day and it's been around for 30 years.

Only RAs should result in maneuvering, and that's been the case since US carriers were equipped with them by 91/93. I'm not sure who you were lobbying hard against in the 90's. UK/Europe was a late TCAS adopter in 2000 after which, for awhile anyway, there was still debate and training differences as to whether RAs took precedence over conflicting ATC instructions as the 2002 midair exposed. Hopefully, everyone is on the same page now.

TCAS display as a substitute for visual acquisition...absolutely not, of course. I know my long post is eye-glazing, but that is exactly the point for much of it. TCAS was the first thing on the list I mentioned those things that aren't a substitutes to acquiring traffic visually, whether the aircraft has been pointed out by ATC or not.

What I did say was that it's an aid that assists visual acquisition by directing attention to sectors of sky for scanning. That is literally the stated purpose of having Proximate, Unidentified, and Traffic Advisory symbols with relative altitudes shown on the display, with the TA alert designed to reduce the startle factor and response time if an RA occurs. Mere mortals can't tirelessly focus on everything everywhere all at once and we must prioritize duties and attention according to the situation. In the case of SFO when they're conducting parallel visuals the traffic call from ATC will usually come between the vector for intercept and clearance to fly the published Visual approach and the before intercept. If that traffic call is the first time someone looks outside to attempt visual acquisition of the aircraft they'll pair up with...because you know you'll be pairing up with someone...he/she might want to reconsider his/her priorities.

The problem isn't that the other aircraft ATC wants you to see can't be seen (at that point on the SFO visual it easily can be). The problem is that ATC has called out 1 aircraft but there may be 3 or 4 aircraft easily in view from the cockpit window, and if the traffic is low perhaps some ground lights could also confuse. The process of the brain differentiating between things one sees and compensating begins when first looking outside, so maybe the best time to begin that process isn't at 180 kts converging with the other aircraft when someone also needs to be minding the store confirming that the intercept is happening when it should. Life gets a lot easier if one begins to get the SA picture beforehand and allow the brain more time to process and differentiate in order to avoid what could otherwise be an initially-confusing picture later.

Visually mis-identifying aircraft has always been an issue long before the advent of TCAS, which in my opinion has reduced the likelihood. Pilots are fine with azimuth but estimates vary greatly when it comes to judging altitude differences relative to one's own, especially over slant range distances. At night you're looking for aircraft lighting against what may be a background of lights with all sorts of brightness, colours, and flashiness. Or it could be a hazy day with low sun in your eyes and the vis from where one sits is far more restricted than anything being reported. So if ATC calls out 1 aircraft but TCAS is showing 3 in that sector in close proximity and minimum vertical spacing (perhaps just 500" if 1 is VFR) your brain already accepts that the first 1 you spot visually may not be the one ATC wants you to identify so you continue to scan.

Low aspect targets are more difficult to see until close-in and if they're hot there's less time to visually acquire. Constant bearing crossing traffic has little or no relative motion. When ATC gives a traffic position it's not BRA but rather a Clock Bearing relative to flight path, not relative to aircraft heading, so unless there's zero x-wind component the traffic can possibly be positioned 1 or 2 clock sectors off. In daily use, I doubt there's anyone who doesn't reference the no-conflict Proximate Traffic targets and try to spot them, and in this way through familiarity makes one better at visually judging relative altitudes and slant range distances air-to-air because you have something inside the cockpit displaying their altitude.

Until ADS-B w/CPDLC is universally adopted, all aircraft equipped, and always-working worldwide, the TCAS info displayed to the crew will always be used for situational awareness monitor proximate traffic and, as such, sometimes for positioning where surveillance and/or ATC is sketchy or non-existent; there's still wake turbulence at altitude that may need offsetting from, the occasional oncoming traffic that's uncomfortably at or near your altitude that should be monitored, or CBs that need deviating around along everyone else having the same idea.

While TCAS certainly has its limitations it's not your grandpa's Pong game either, and It's better to have a slightly imperfect picture of those around you than no picture at all. In those places where ATC does exist but adhere to a funny, aviation-variation of the "Less is More" philosophy that prevents them from advising you of overtaking and/or nearby traffic because "You won't be able to miss seeing it soon anyway" or perhaps the gov doesn't have the funds to go around replacing worn-out ATC PTT switches, this also applies.

"We have him on TCAS", yes, yes, absolutely agree. An entirely useless response to a traffic call that does nothing but create uncertainly with the Controller (and everyone else) as to whether the pilot is looking outside for the traffic or not. I'm glad you brought it up, and perhaps we can all agree now's the time to establish a worldwide system of fining any pilot $500 (or pro crew $500 per head) for uttering it on the radio, paid into a fund that will be used for a yearly Pilot/Controller bash somewhere on neutral ground; a chartered 250' Feadship party boat floating on the Caribbean, for instance.

In fact, since the Authorities everywhere aren't doing anything about it and in the interests of getting the biggest boat possible, there should be an entire list of useless, annoying, and offending transmissions and their associated fines, the amount for each commensurate to its annoyance level. Something like;

1) We have him on TCAS ($500)
2) F*** ($1)
3) You have a stuck Mic ($1500 If repeated, + $5000)
4) Fully ready ($480)
5) ____ on the meter ($975)
6) Charlie Charlie ($ 328)
7) You're on Guard!!! ($ 2,500 + 3 Anger Management classes + 5-year Party Boat ban)
8) Animal noises (Entire estate + Death)
9) etc.
10) etc.

The Lufty pilot knew your price list well before us. Since we Germans are cheap / like getting value for money he chose option 2) for $ 1 only. “I’ll squeeze myself in, have them all on TCAS” would have been way to expensive!

[ATC Watcher]

I'm not sure who you were lobbying hard against in the 90's. UK/Europe was a late TCAS adopter in 2000 after which, for awhile anyway, there was still debate and training differences as to whether RAs took precedence over conflicting ATC instructions as the 2002 midair exposed. Hopefully, everyone is on the same page now.
.
First I must say ,spot on your replies, Would love to have a couple of beers with you if our lives meet one day :ok: Quick comments on the above : The "lobby" was ICAO FANS II meetings 1990-1993.defining ACAS and other niceties like ADS-B and CPDLC. which should all have been a global standard, but we failed miserably as each side of the Atlantic developed its own system . The TCAS "training differences" you mention were the direct result of the lawyers of the MITRE corporation ( who designed the TCAS software) which insisted on calling the avoiding instructions " Resolution Advisories" to avoid being sued in case it would not worked as planned. When you translate "advisory" in Russian you start to see where the problems started in Ueberlingen..

In fact, since the Authorities everywhere aren't doing anything about it and in the interests of getting the biggest boat possible, there should be an entire list of useless, annoying, and offending transmissions and their associated fines, the amount for each commensurate to its annoyance level. Something like; 1) We have him on TCAS ($500), 2) F*** ($1), etc..etc,.

Fantastic list ,We should lobby ICAO to get this enshrined in PANS OPS . I would add " Do we have to descend now ?" , 500$ at least . :)
But back to our case here, the LH just said " Fu**k up your sequence" that should have been 1 $ on your list but the diversion to OAK was a lot more that that I guess, not including the 600 Euros compensation per delayed pax for the Europeans on board.
​​​​​​​ Flying is expensive..

[Capn Bloggs]

SFO has about 1300 arrivals a day. LHR about 650. That’s not about the same. It’s substantially different.
Wiki gives the following total movements for 2022:
LHR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathrow_Airport#In_table): 384,383 (1053 per day)
SFO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_International_Airport#Statistics): 355,306 (973 per day)

You're not even close.

[Capt Fathom]

For the last 12 months, LHR is now up to 447,400. And there is a curfew which applies to certain operations at the back of the clock.

[Capn Bloggs]

Here are the two wiki entries, from my links above. The images are necessarily long so I can't be accused of polluting the data by cutting and pasting.

LHR:

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/681x1170/lhr_f92e0676bf5b5ce879faf685efab8b6711811886.jpg
SFO:
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/571x1103/sfo_e950a63f4616e51fcbcaedb2263d28a1784bd6c0.jpg

Obviously, "last year" is not 2021, and in any case, 2021 can't validly be used because of the disruption caused by the pandemic and the varying travel restrictions.

[Capn Bloggs]

A rather heated discussion has occurred.
I'm simply stating what I believe to be the facts and I have provided my references for all to study, Mustang.

421Dog won't post his references (because they don't substantiate his claim). Case lost. LHR is busier than SFO. Sailvi767 is wrong.

[421dog]

A rather heated discussion has occurred.
a sort of "wagging" of figurative body parts?
They're both busy.

Would be interesting to also compare the shift patterns of the controllers, the number of active controllers, supporting staff in the cabs or at the desks in approach and departure, the rate of turnover and burnout, adding in the runway configurations, directions of arrivals and departures, nearby airports and their traffic numbers and patterns.

I've flown into both and can say that LHR was a much more calmer, relaxed endeavour than SFO.

Have never flown into LHO except as SLF (way too many times,) and also out on Concorde a couple times (Way too few)
The last time I went across (supersonic) (on G-BOAG, I think) the captain informed us that the Service from Heathrow tower was “Of their usual sterling quality, and that we should expect acceleration that might be a little more ‘sporting than normal’
upon our takeoff roll”

[Bidule]

For 2022:
LHR 380,305 Source UK CAA https://www.caa.co.uk/Documents/Download/9116/47a460b2-0592-4ef7-b24b-aa5e27ccfce4/5623
SFO 355,006 Source SFO airport https://www.flysfo.com/sites/default/files/2023-02/Dec%202022%20and%20CYTD%20SFO%20Air%20Traffic%20Summary.pdf



.

[Capn Bloggs]

In a word, let the others be wrong if they wish.
I don't have a problem with that.

What I do have a problem with is letting ignorant third parties be led astray by nonsense (and I don't use the term "ignorant" in a disparaging way):

Originally Posted by Sailvi767
SFO has about 1300 arrivals a day. LHR about 650. That’s not about the same. It’s substantially different.

​​​​​​​The info I had for LHR gave movements so, yes, that is like comparing chalk and cheeses. I asked "Is that correct?" and you answered. Thank you!

Based on the information I have provided, with references, Noel Evans has been misled with fiction and has now gone away to potentially spread that fiction that has been spouted on PPrune.

And despite post after post, neither Sailvi767 or 421Dog have posted anything that refutes what I have provided, which clearly shows LHR is busier than SFO, aircraft movements-wise, and kills SFO, pax movements-wise.

Added: Thanks Bidule.

[Request Orbit]

I’m really sure any person interested in actual numbers can recover actual data from the respective National websites with a modicum of effort that will relieve me of the idiotically tiresome task of proving that SFO has more ops than LHR. I did it, and you are trying to refute it.

https://adip.faa.gov/agis/public/#/airportData/SFO scroll to the bottom, lists 299,744 for 2022 for KSFO

https://www.caa.co.uk/Documents/Download/9116/47a460b2-0592-4ef7-b24b-aa5e27ccfce4/5623 lists 380,305 for 2022, for EGLL

Now interestingly Wikipedia lists SFO at 355,006 for the year. A bit of further research on Google give the airport website (https://www.flysfo.com/about/media/facts-statistics/air-traffic-statistics) which publishes monthly data with a rolling total. I’ve gone through and added the monthly totals for 2022 for you. (25761+24503+28632+29092+30304+31612+32434+32315+30972+31448 +29022+28911=…355,006)

Now, given it’s rather an off-topic tangent and not really relevant it seems a waste to be-labour the point. However, what respective national website do you have have that says otherwise?

Heathrow seemingly has more movements per year (despite a night curfew) but at its busiest cannot move as many planes in a single hour.

edit: should have refreshed the thread before hitting post, but as we all found the same stats without too much bother it’s nice to be cross checked

[Sailvi767]

Wiki gives the following total movements for 2022:
LHR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathrow_Airport#In_table): 384,383 (1053 per day)
SFO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_International_Airport#Statistics): 355,306 (973 per day)

You're not even close.

Go to the airport sites. Make sure you are comparing the same things. I used arrivals. Some on here are comparing arrivals to operations. SFO handles twice the traffic of LHR. I have flown extensively out of both and it’s pretty obvious to anyone operating there that SFO has a far greater volume.
I did not even discuss actual aircraft operating in the area. OAK is 10 miles away and there is extensive light aircraft traffic being fed through the area. On top of all that there numerous noise sensitive areas restricting airspace.

[Sailvi767]

My use of “sides” is far too black and white for something that is obviously a lot more nuanced so appreciate that sentiment. Separation is a pretty defining characteristic of air traffic, and when it comes to IFR traffic is very much an ATC responsibility inside controlled airspace. If you can delegate that to pilots to keep things moving at times, great. If the whole thing falls apart if a single pilot says no, not great. It is not the pilots responsibility. If saying no results in that situation, it’s bad airspace/sectorisation/training/procedure design. We’re going to declare the airspace Class B and publish instrument procedures, but don’t dare actually ask us to provide the level of service that implies.

If you listen carefully the controller was working on a solution. He wanted to clear them for the ILS and have them acknowledge the parallel traffic in sight. They declined that option. I can assure you they still would have landed at SFO if it were not for this. “We will declare an emergency and f**k up your pattern.” Once that was broadcast welcome to OAK!

[Sailvi767]

How does SFO cope when the weather is down to Cat I (or lower!) conditions? (LHR 'stumbles' when it gets below Cat I and increased approach spacing is needed, but copes quite well in Cat I.)

When visuals are not available in SFO they issue ground stops to the domestic US traffic planned into SFO. They then begin to cancel flights in addition to the ground stop. In general the regional jet flights are canceled first but airline op centers often make the call as they are given a number of operations that must be canceled and they decide which flights. City pairs like LAX-SFO also get hit hard as there are so many flights it makes rebooking easier. International operations are for obvious reasons not subject to any of this.

[Del Prado]

Go to the airport sites. Make sure you are comparing the same things. I used arrivals. Some on here are comparing arrivals to operations. SFO handles twice the traffic of LHR. I have flown extensively out of both and it’s pretty obvious to anyone operating there that SFO has a far greater volume.

look at the post by Request Orbit 2 above your post. They have helpfully provided CAA and FAA figures for the two airports.

Do you have some verifiable figures that prove SFO has double the movements of LHR? A more accurate source than CAA/FAA?

[Del Prado]

Here’s a list of Heathrow’s stats for 2023 so far. Aircraft movements taken from Heathrow Airport website.

January 2023 34,961
February 2023 32,503
March 2023 36,671
April 2023 37,249
May 2023 39,488
June 2023 38,117
July 2023 40,422
August 2023 39,905
September 2023 39,193
October 2023 40,201

heading for about 450,000 total movements this year.
2020 and 2021 stats are unrepresentative due covid.

SFO running total in the end of September report is 287,524 total movements, down about 20-25% on Heathrow.

Heathrow website (https://www.heathrow.com/content/dam/heathrow/web/common/documents/company/investor/reports-and-presentations/traffic-statistics/Oct23-Heathrow-Monthly-Traffic-Statistics.xlsx)

SFO report (https://www.flysfo.com/sites/default/files/2023-11/Sep%202023%20and%20CYTD%20SFO%20Air%20Traffic%20Summary.pdf)

[Request Orbit]

Go to the airport sites. Make sure you are comparing the same things. I used arrivals. Some on here are comparing arrivals to operations. SFO handles twice the traffic of LHR. I have flown extensively out of both and it’s pretty obvious to anyone operating there that SFO has a far greater volume.

I did not even discuss actual aircraft operating in the area. OAK is 10 miles away and there is extensive light aircraft traffic being fed through the area. On top of all that there numerous noise sensitive areas restricting airspace.

If you listen carefully the controller was working on a solution. He wanted to clear them for the ILS and have them acknowledge the parallel traffic in sight. They declined that option. I can assure you they still would have landed at SFO if it were not for this. “We will declare an emergency and f**k up your pattern.” Once that was broadcast welcome to OAK!

https://www.flysfo.com/sites/default/files/2023-01/Nov%202022%20and%20CYTD%20SFO%20Air%20Traffic%20Summary.pdf

The stats from the SFO website list total monthly tower operations in the first table. The next table down is then total monthly landings (aka arrivals). The total monthly ops, once you’ve added the air taxi and military movements is about double the landings. Do you have any actual stats that say otherwise, or just a feeling that it’s quite busy when you’re there? I’ll re-iterate what I said in my earlier post: at it’s peak hours SFO moves a lot more planes an hour, but from the published figures, their peak hours do not last as long.

If you want to get into nearby airports, OAKs annual movements for 2022, 213,668 (https://www.oaklandairport.com/wp-content/uploads/Dec-2022-Summary.pdf). That’s 4,000 fewer than Gatwick alone, and doesn’t bring Northolt, London City, Stansted, Luton or Biggin into it. They might be a couple more miles away in some case but it’s very much hemmed in on every side.

The controller was not working on a solution (that we heard). In the example you use, he was offering them what they were going to get anyway in slightly different wording. What he offered was exactly what they were restricted from doing. Saying an emergency would ruin the sequence wasn’t a threat, it’s a statement of fact. It would have left the controller in the exact same position but with no choice but to come up with an actual solution. If you turned up at an airport and got delayed for an hour without the slightest hint of an EAT, would you be impressed?

[PukinDog]

First I must say ,spot on your replies, Would love to have a couple of beers with you if our lives meet one day :ok: Quick comments on the above : The "lobby" was ICAO FANS II meetings 1990-1993.defining ACAS and other niceties like ADS-B and CPDLC. which should all have been a global standard, but we failed miserably as each side of the Atlantic developed its own system . The TCAS "training differences" you mention were the direct result of the lawyers of the MITRE corporation ( who designed the TCAS software) which insisted on calling the avoiding instructions " Resolution Advisories" to avoid being sued in case it would not worked as planned. When you translate "advisory" in Russian you start to see where the problems started in Ueberlingen..


Fantastic list ,We should lobby ICAO to get this enshrined in PANS OPS . I would add " Do we have to descend now ?" , 500$ at least . :)
But back to our case here, the LH just said " Fu**k up your sequence" that should have been 1 $ on your list but the diversion to OAK was a lot more that that I guess, not including the 600 Euros compensation per delayed pax for the Europeans on board.
Flying is expensive..

Thank you for the insight. I'd still credit those working group meetings for pushing what we're enjoying today with respect to CPDLC and ADS-B plus refinements in the TCAS/ACAS tech past the original 6-series software versions.

It's probably inevitable each side of the Atlantic had their own priorities. The US had been working on the proto-TCAS since the 70s and testing TCAS 1 early 80's. The decision had been made to focus on a system that wasn't ground-dependent and utilized existing Transponder equipment. The 1986 Cerritos midair collision that killed an additional 15 on the ground in a residential area removed any doubt what they wanted, including Mode C requirements for GA and and a harder push to make TCAS mandatory.

MITRE...I'm not even sure if anyone could successfully sue them. They're practically a systems engineering arm of the US government. Their aviation research Center and branches are entrenched, integral to designing the US air defence and the FAA's civil air traffic systems with fancy, associated accoutrements for the Air Force and FAA since the late 50's. They trace their lineage back to WW2 wartime research projects plus private industry and universities brought together under an umbrella.

The MITRE developers would undoubtedly be aware of the limitations of the software. They'd realize that even when it worked perfectly with no malfunctions, the fact that an RA could still command you to fly into the ground or attempt to exceed the aircraft's climb performance would preclude them from designing anything that would work coupled to the autopilot. With the human element in the form of the pilot purposely inserted, perhaps the tech engineers reasoning behind calling it an "advisory" ( rather than a "command") made more sense since the rules as to whether one should, shall, or shall w/conditions follow them would be up to the regulators.

Interesting point about the Russian translation, I wasn't aware of that.

I'm all for ICAO PANS OPS enshrinement of The List. Good news, taking point on the lobbying effort is up for grabs, especially for anyone with ICAO working group experience. They'd just hang up on me.

"Do we have to descend now?"....Great addition! $500 minimum (applicable only to an Instrument Student, 1st offence) Otherwise, $1250 (to include the CFII who was sitting next to the aforementioned Student). Note: Rule applies to any variation e.g. "Is that at our discretion?".

I 2nd the motion for beers if we do ever cross paths, and hope that we might :ok:. No doubt we'd sort out most trans-Atlantic differences except how to spell...aluminuminiam? My shout for the first round, not necessarily because I'd admit to having ever befouled the airwaves with any of The List's transgressions and therefore already owe something to the fund, but rather in keeping with my old man's estimation that 'though I may not be of guilty something in particular, I'm most likely guilty of something.

[Del Prado]

The only way to be sure is to go one's self and count the aircraft. "sources" vary in their focus and to think that "sources" never have an agenda or simply make mistakes, appears to be a bit naive.

There’s the stats from the FAA, from the CAA, from Heathrow Airport Limited (which form part of their Fiduciary responsibilities), from SFO (which are probably part of their stock market filings too), from OAG and from Wikipedia and every single one is in broad alignment with the others but maybe they’re all made up, maybe it’s a plot.

Every day I understand more how Brexit and Trump happened. 😆😆😬

[BoeingDriver99]

Never argue with a fool. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

[NoelEvans]

...

What I do have a problem with is letting ignorant third parties be led astray by nonsense (and I don't use the term "ignorant" in a disparaging way):


Based on the information I have provided, with references, Noel Evans has been misled with fiction and has now gone away to potentially spread that fiction that has been spouted on PPrune.
...
What utter nonsense!!!!

[Capn Bloggs]

What utter nonsense!!!!
I'm pleased you understand that Sailvi's numbers are wrong and that LHR has more movements than SFO. :ok:​​​​​​​

[NoelEvans]

I'm pleased you understand that Sailvi's numbers are wrong and that LHR has more movements than SFO. :ok:
All that I said was utter nonsense is any idea that I have "now gone away to potentially spread that fiction that has been spouted on PPrune"

[safetypee]

The industry should see the SFO event as an opportunity to learn, reassess safety boundaries.

‘Drifting into failure’ is a metaphor for the slow, incremental movement of systems operations toward (and eventually across) the boundaries of their safety envelope. Pressures of scarcity and competition typically fuel such movement and uncertain technology and incomplete knowledge about where the boundaries actually are, result in people not stopping the movement or even seeing it.
Recognising that a system is drifting into failure is difficult because the entire protective structure (including suppliers, regulators, managerial hierarchies, etc.) seems to slide along with the operational core toward the boundary. Even if an operational system is ‘borrowing more from safety’ than it was previously or than it is elsewhere by operating with smaller failure margins, this may be considered ‘normal’, as the regulator approved it. Almost everybody inside the system does it, goes along, and agrees, implicitly or not, with what is defined as risky or safe.
Also, the departures from previous practice are seldom quick or large or shocking (and thus difficult to detect): rather, there is a slow succession of tiny incremental deviations from what previously was the ‘norm’. Each departure in itself is hardly noteworthy. In fact, such ‘departures’ are part and parcel of normal adaptive system behaviour, as organizations (and their regulators) continually realign themselves and their operations with current interpretations of the balance between profitability and risk (and have to do so in environments of resource scarcity and competition). As a result, large system accidents of the past few decades have revealed that what is considered ‘normal’, or acceptable risk is highly negotiable and subject to all kinds of local pressures and interpretations.

S. Dekker in 'Resilience Concepts and Precepts'

[Luc Lion]

@safetypee (https://www.pprune.org/members/62187-safetypee), I believe that this concept of system drifting process could also fairly describe the engineering of the B737 Max MCAS.
And, to be fair, that's also the case of all aircraft accidents whose investigation showed that organisational complacency is part of the root causes.

[ATC Watcher]

there is a slow succession of tiny incremental deviations from what previously was the ‘norm [......] ’continually realign themselves and their operations with current interpretations of the balance between profitability and risk
Excellent reminder safetypee . A similar sentence was also in Perrow's " normal accidents " book if I remember.
We have a saying in French (from Alphonse Allais) that can translate as when you voluntarily exceed the rules/borders , there are no limits anymore on what you can do .. ( une fois passe les bornes il n'y a plus de limites) Those 2 sentences resume well the SFO self separation procedure only aimed to allow more movements in an Airport which runways configuration, according to the rules, would not allow simultaneous approaches.

[FullWings]

Excellent reminder safetypee . A similar sentence was also in Perrow's " normal accidents " book if I remember.
We have a saying in French (from Alphonse Allais) that can translate as when you voluntarily exceed the rules/borders , there are no limits anymore on what you can do .. ( une fois passe les bornes il n'y a plus de limites) Those 2 sentences resume well the SFO self separation procedure only aimed to allow more movements in an Airport which runways configuration, according to the rules, would not allow simultaneous approaches.
AKA “normalisation of deviance” used to describe the runup to a famous accident...

[BoeingDriver99]

I recall observing the FO taxing out towards 08R in EGKK many moons ago. We were in an orderly queue for departure. Right at the end of the concrete the FO continued straight ahead towards the grass and it was a reflex action of mine to brake and stop the aircraft. The reason for the departure from the yellow line? “That’s what everyone does in Gatwick to avoid jet blasting the following aircraft.”

Normalisation of deviance is ten thousand times slower than hypoxia but a thousand times more lethal. Why; because by it’s very nature; it happens daily and it’s incipient.

It’s always perfectly fine until it’s violently not.

[PukinDog]

The river visual is heaps of fun :)


Indeed it is :ok:

[1201alarm]

Bluntly: the SFO controller is a complete ****.

The A350 was on an IFR flight from far away and announced early on that he could neither do a visual approach nor do own visual separation.

So it is the controllers job to slot him into the sequence and make the needed room such that the IFR flight gets a proper instrument approach with proper separation assured by the controller.

To advise 10 mins holding to prepare for that is fine, but then after 14 min of holding and a request for an updated EAT by the crew to basically force him to divert (by announcing indefinitive holding) is NOT ok, when other aircraft who have arrived after the A350 are being landed.

It is certainly not the controllers job to "educate" a crew and to play police or judge on an airliners SOP by refusing basic ATC service - also not when a crew is not 100% perfect in their language. Words are words, what counts is the action, and Lufty was completely professional in their actions.

Of course ATC can deal on a desk with this situation in general with Lufthansa and see how to avoid such happenings in the future - I think no reasonable flight ops manager would deny that you have to play along on high density airports, so certainly it could be worked out.

But this is a table exercise and should not be a concern for an ATC controller on the job.

[NoelEvans]

Going back to the SFO/LHR comparisons:

SFO seems to be a 'fair weather' airport.

LHR is an 'all weather' airport.

In Cat 1 conditions at LHR things run 'as normal'.

When down to Cat 1 conditions it appears that SFO cannot deal with 'normal'.

This is all useful information. We are planning a trip into the Pacific shortly that will require a stop on the North American west coast. From what I have read above, SFO has dropped to the bottom of the list of options...

[BlunderBus]

A lot of airlines refuse to allow NIGHT visual approaches. SFO has its own circumstances but why not tune the ILS ..accept the visual and fly loc/gs guidance anyway? I’d use ILS guidance on any night visual. Why not use all resources? I think the controllers screwed him around as heard in the verbal exchanges. Swearing on air is ‘verbotten’also.
Pretty crappy effort from both sides.

[Capn Bloggs]

SFO has its own circumstances but why not tune the ILS ..accept the visual and fly loc/gs guidance anyway?
It's all on the first few pages of the thread:

1. The Quiet Bridge Visual arrival is not aligned with the ILS (post #90);

2. The QB requires aircraft to visually self-separate with the adjacent aircraft down final because the runways are so close together; independent approaches (vis or ILS) can't be flown;

3. LH SOPs do not permit visual self-separation.

[West Coast]

It's all on the first few pages of the thread:

1. The Quiet Bridge Visual arrival is not aligned with the ILS (post #90);

2. The QB requires aircraft to visually self-separate with the adjacent aircraft down final because the runways are so close together; independent approaches (vis or ILS) can't be flown;

3. LH SOPs do not permit visual self-separation.

For clarity, on point one are you referring to the Quiet Bridge visual or the FMS Bridge visual?

[Capn Bloggs]

For clarity, on point one are you referring to the Quiet Bridge visual or the FMS Bridge visual?
QBV. Other posters have said that there are waypoints in the box for the QBV, but none are published in the FAA procedures that I can find. I would be interested in the FMS Visual details. Got a screenshot of the QBV in the box?

[West Coast]

QBV. Other posters have said that there are waypoints in the box for the QBV, but none are published in the FAA procedures that I can find. I would be interested in the FMS Visual details. Got a screenshot of the QBV in the box?

At home for the Holiday, far from a plane.

[Capn Bloggs]

At home for the Holiday, far from a plane.
​​​​​​​Enjoy.

[PukinDog]

A lot of airlines refuse to allow NIGHT visual approaches. SFO has its own circumstances but why not tune the ILS ..accept the visual and fly loc/gs guidance anyway? I’d use ILS guidance on any night visual. Why not use all resources? I think the controllers screwed him around as heard in the verbal exchanges. Swearing on air is ‘verbotten’also.
Pretty crappy effort from both sides.

It's all on the first few pages of the thread:

1. The Quiet Bridge Visual arrival is not aligned with the ILS (post #90);

2. The QB requires aircraft to visually self-separate with the adjacent aircraft down final because the runways are so close together; independent approaches (vis or ILS) can't be flown;

3. LH SOPs do not permit visual self-separation.

BB, adding to what CB has said;

Both the QB Visual for 28R and the Tip Toe Visual for 28L require some electronic guidance. They're both charted/published and if you check them out you'll see what's required. Both their respective ILS's are depicted. If you study them you'll find:

28L (TIp Toe Visual) is a straight-in approach. Tuning/ IDing the ILS freq is mandatory since the LOC is the primary lateral guidance source (not merely a backup) that you're required and cleared to intercept and track inbound to the runway. You can fly it coupled all the way and use the GS which is set at a lower path angle than 28R's. The 28L LOC must be working for this Visual.

28R (QB Visual), as mentioned, has a 6 degree offset based off the SFO VOR (095R) until the Bridge @ 6 DME SFO, so both must be working. However, you do indeed tune the 28R ILS because that will be a source to establish your straight-in alignment and path once inside the Bridge. GS for 28R has the higher path angle. The slight maneuver to align oneself straight-in for 28R inside 6 DME is more clearly depicted on some plates than others. Inside 6 the Loc is just about alive.

So both Visuals require operating ground-based NAV; the SFO VOR DME and the 28L LOC with a requirement for use. ATC clearance for one of these charted Visual Approaches requires one to follow the plate, and for neither does "Cleared for the QB or TT Visual" mean establishing oneself inbound visually or by following another aircraft to the same runway. There is the expectation that inside 6 DME both will track their respective LOCs. By this time they will have had each other in sight for miles while tracking electronic guidance designed to produce the gentle 6 degree convergence. The speed assignments will include the directive for the aircraft slightly aft to not overtake the one ahead.

"Maintain visual separation"....this clearance means exactly what It says, and 'Maintain" does not equate to "Visually establish and maintain separation". Establishment of separation between the aircraft is accomplished by the design layout of the electronic guidance paths and each aircraft flying that electronic guidance as cleared. For the final-turn intercepts ATC will establish through speed control and alt assignment a slight fore/aft stagger plus high-side./low-side vertical separation. The glide paths have slightly different slopes. After establishing inbound, If both aircraft follow their respective clearances and charted electronic guidance, separation continues to be maintained without doing anything except to visually monitor the other aircraft in case someone F's-up by drifting off-course or off-speed.

The only aspect of these Visuals that differs from an instrument approach is, if on the QB inside of 6 DME, the necessity of turning a bit further left in order to ease into the groove/intercept the 28R Loc for the last few miles.

Most likely some ,if not all, of the LH crew had flown the very same Visuals during the daytime (when they normally arrive when on schedule) and were in no way surprised they were in use. They were handcuffed by their SOPs. Bummer.

[ATC Watcher]

PukinDo (https://www.pprune.org/members/369933-pukindog)g Most likely some ,if not all, of the LH crew had flown the very same Visuals during the daytime (when they normally arrive when on schedule) and were in no way surprised they were in use. They were handcuffed by their SOPs. Bummer.
Yes that is what my (FRA) LH contacts on the 747s are saying too... and when they exceptionally came at night it has never been an issue before to get an ILS. I suppose the same is valid on the 350s fleet out of MUC. Looks like a combination of wrong timing ,plus fatigue and a bit of wrong egos on both sides of the mike..

[maxrpm]

The LH flight comes in at 13:00 local time. This particular flight was very much delayed thus arriving a night

[YRP]

Yes that is what my (FRA) LH contacts on the 747s are saying too... and when they exceptionally came at night it has never been an issue before to get an ILS. I suppose the same is valid on the 350s fleet out of MUC. Looks like a combination of wrong timing ,plus fatigue and a bit of wrong egos on both sides of the mike..

Any word on whether they are going to change / clarify the SOPs to avoid this issue in the future?

[PukinDog]

PukinDo (https://www.pprune.org/members/369933-pukindog)g
Yes that is what my (FRA) LH contacts on the 747s are saying too... and when they exceptionally came at night it has never been an issue before to get an ILS. I suppose the same is valid on the 350s fleet out of MUC. Looks like a combination of wrong timing ,plus fatigue and a bit of wrong egos on both sides of the mike..

Agreed, and since the discussion has a branch that's gone something like: LH diverts ---> LH off-schedule ---> Timing issue ---> Inability to work LH in for an ILS ---> LHR vs SFO traffic number debate.....it follows there could be a further, natural progression into: ---> IATA Level 3 slot-governing for all aircraft vs Level 2 voluntary, airline schedule-facilitating airports ----> Fundamental differences in Air Traffic Management philosophy and why...,..which ultimately leads us to...---> Which side of the Atlantic has the better Philosophy?

Now, although I was highly-impressed and pleased that Mustang was able to so casually work an apropos John Locke quote into this thread (which unfortunately been removed, it seems) , in the interests of avoiding upping the ante from LHR/SFO traffic count numbers to full-blown, epistemological willy-waving, I won't bring the IATA thing into it.

(Of course, if someone really wants to, I'm game).

[Request Orbit]

As I said at the time when stating the numbers, I don’t really feel it’s relevant to the point at all for the most part. What is of more relevance, at least to me, was the absolute belief the two original posters had that they were correct. Even when stated the numbers from the places they’d requested, they still refused to believe them or alter their position. This then leads me to take anything else they say with an absolute mines worth of salt, which is a pity as it appears at least one of them had a lot of first-hand, relevant info to add to the discussion. There may be an interesting tangential discussion to be had about why they’re so convinced SFO is much busier.

Yes that is what my (FRA) LH contacts on the 747s are saying too... and when they exceptionally came at night it has never been an issue before to get an ILS.

That is of far more interest to me. It explains why the DLH pilot was so baffled that he was still being vectored around 40 minutes after first confirming they were unable to apply visual separation. If it was never an issue before why was it this time?

[PukinDog]

As I said at the time when stating the numbers, I don’t really feel it’s relevant to the point at all for the most part. What is of more relevance, at least to me, was the absolute belief the two original posters had that they were correct. Even when stated the numbers from the places they’d requested, they still refused to believe them or alter their position. This then leads me to take anything else they say with an absolute mines worth of salt, which is a pity as it appears at least one of them had a lot of first-hand, relevant info to add to the discussion. There may be an interesting tangential discussion to be had about why they’re so convinced SFO is much busier.



That is of far more interest to me. It explains why the DLH pilot was so baffled that he was still being vectored around 40 minutes after first confirming they were unable to apply visual separation. If it was never an issue before why was it this time?

No telling, but the traffic situation can and does change daily/nightly. There's nothing in the video that paints the larger picture but it's 100% certain it differed from previous LH flights because even the previous night would have been different. There could've been a stream as far east as Salt Lake City, or perhaps the other LH aircraft gave far more advance notice, or arrived at a different time after sundown, or a different day of the week.

The entire comparison between LHR and SFO or any other European airport as it pertains to "the ability to handle traffic" just because they have parallel runways is silly because LHR is slot-governed for all aircraft arrivals like almost every other European airport is slot-governed for all aircraft arrivals. Unlike the US, the airways of Europe are also essentially slot-governed. The US has only 1 slot-governed airport that any international flight has to deal with, JFK, and that's only the 9th busiest airport in the US and world. At their busiest, LHR is comparable to JFK (movements, widely-spaced parallels, IATA Level 3). The US doesn't even cap the traffic for airports 1-8, so they don't for SFO either. Point is, the level of congestion can change a great deal day-t0-day, week-to-week, month-to-month.

Because of this, you certainly can't take previous LH aircrafts' ability to get worked-in for an ILS as a historical guide to assume there should have been an easy way to do so that night.

[Request Orbit]

The ability to make a gap to work them into the sequence for an ILS is a very similar task to fitting in a go around or dealing with an emergency - or at least it should be. Unless you’re also suggesting there would have been no capacity to deal with either of those events that night, I don’t personally feel that stands up.

[Del Prado]

I still struggle to see why they couldn’t have given the Lufthansa a 3 mile separation ‘bubble’ by increasing the gap on one runway by a mile and vectoring the Lufthansa in the middle of that gap for the other runway.

Tower would have lost a departure gap but after (what would have become) a 20 minute delay for Lufthansa that would seem like a fair compromise.

Having a “queue of aircraft stretching all the way back to the rockies” doesn’t cut it. There must be some flexibility to fit in go arounds at least.

[Request Orbit]

There must be some flexibility to fit in go arounds at least.

Especially since according to FAA 7110.308E (12,f) (https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/JO_7110.308E_Simultaneous_Dependent_Approaches_to_CSPR.pdf) if one of a pair goes around then situationally both have to go-around, they should be used to dealing with go-arounds in pairs. If there’s a queue to the Rockies do they both just get sent to join the back?

[safetypee]

Re Normalisation of Deviance
Whom or what is deviant; - a range of viewpoints, each assessing deviation from the others', or that the overall operational system deviates from best practice - everyone is deviant by acceptance.
ATC, Airport, using procedures where the level of risk is higher than the industry norm, particularly at night.
The Operator with specific procedures to reduce risk in particular situations, but which conflicts with local norms.
The regulator who approves and oversees the risks in operations.

Consider 'what if', after the accident:-
Visual procedures, but with FMS waypoints.
Visual self separation;
The daytime 'follow the aircraft type/operator' assumes that all operators have common knowledge, aircraft recognition, even that the colour scheme matches the locally known ATC information of operator/call sign.
At night, all that might be seen are the aircraft lights, against a bright cityscape background; thus how is 'the aircraft' visually identified as the one to follow (and for the ACAS lovers, the emphasis is on visual, not being headdown multitasking reducing lookout time).
What is the procedure if the lead aircraft goes around - your clearance was to follow the aircraft; any alternative assumes good communications / specific procedures.
The risk of suffering the black-hole illusion could be higher; bright cityscape background with the approach over water.

… ‘well-intentioned people in dysfunctional organisations’ (systems) …

The emergence of confused consensus
The art of muddling through
Law of continuous bodges