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Near miss with 5 airliners waiting for T/O on taxiway "C" in SFO!

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Near miss with 5 airliners waiting for T/O on taxiway "C" in SFO!

Old 15th Jul 2017, 19:17
  #241 (permalink)  
 
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Possibly...especially at the end of the day..

If not already self evident, I am no longer able to tolerate non-professional pilot comments on this forum. Good night.

Last edited by Kewbick; 15th Jul 2017 at 19:30.
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Old 15th Jul 2017, 20:55
  #242 (permalink)  
 
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I can see you're probably not a pilot, apologies for the shop talk.

Some carriers have a policy of turning off a flight director if it wasn't giving pertinent guidance e.g. on a visual approach without navaid path guidance. Others leave the flight director on but use caution because the information displayed may be misleading, especially on older nav systems without GPS or WAAS. I believe I used flight path vector years ago on visuals at a couple of carriers in the A306, but as I said, I've never flown the A320.

Sorry if we confused you, hope this helps explain what we're talking about, have a good night.
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Old 15th Jul 2017, 21:23
  #243 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by WillowRun 6-3
Oh really now, Kal Niranjan. It would be easier just to say, when any particular "non Western" carrier you would care to name in particular, one which has in your view been subject to scorn, insinuations and so on (whether "thunderously deafening" or otherwise), compiles an overall safety record and a set of managerial and technical leadership qualities in the safety realm comparable to Air Canada, then maybe you could gripe. But that would be too easy; I like the challenge. When a "non Western" carrier fouls up, and it happens to be in a system, country or culture where substandard practices, lack of standard English, training and/or operational deficiencies, and other gross or significant deviations from SARPs are the norm, pointing these deviations out is not scornful or racism. If you think so, I certainly would enjoy learning about your educational background. Something clearly was missed. (I post this out of a sense of defending the forum, against your too-easily muttered bromides, which are nonsense - despite the stray or occasional off-point remark of a poster now or again.)
I don't agree with Kal 100% but after rereading the EVA LAX near CFIT incident, I sympathise with non-Western pilots who are almost always painted as incompetent by a broad brush.
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Old 15th Jul 2017, 21:34
  #244 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by Ian W
Thanks Kal, not being kind - being realistic. Pilots should all learn from this incident because the same WILL happen to them at some time. Unfortunately, as you will have seen many of the posts on this thread have started with: cannot believe that it is possible for professional pilots etc etc

It is absolutely nothing to do with professionalism or capability it is all to do with cognition and perception - human factors experiments Repeatedly show the brain has limits and cannot work in some ways.

Try to read this post and recite a nursery rhyme and listen to what someone is saying and read it back you cannot. Your brain has only one verbal 'cognitive channel'. A huge amount of research has been carried out in visual perception yet that is all forgotten when airports are designed. Everyone gets a degree of cognitive tunneling (focusing on a problem) when doing something challenging and that is when mis-perception can occur. This has been repeatedly demonstrated in research and happens continually in real life.
Well said.
Didn't some Delta pilots land on some taxiway in ATL some years ago. Well a China Airlines crew took off from taxiway in ANC before.

So pilots from both hemispheres made mistakes. The only difference you don't see Oriental pilots coming over to Pprune gloating ( with pride about their superiority ) over the mistakes made by westerners.
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Old 15th Jul 2017, 22:16
  #245 (permalink)  
 
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For every approach put the relevant ILS frequency in the box. Identify said ILS (dits and dars) and fly said ILS as presented by wondrous displays on the panel within 18 inches of one's nose.

This cock up is what happens when children of the Airbus magenta line look out the window and decide to go for it. Wonder where they would have ended up on the Quiet Bridge Visual.
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Old 15th Jul 2017, 22:32
  #246 (permalink)  
 
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Time to close this one for awhile. It's a rush to admonish pilots to use the ILS or a rant on non western pilots.
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Old 15th Jul 2017, 23:09
  #247 (permalink)  
 
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Time perhaps to let it run for a while. Even for a visual, input the ILS freq as a matter of standard procedure and common sense. Otherwise it's all too easy to land on the parallel taxiway.
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Old 15th Jul 2017, 23:22
  #248 (permalink)  
 
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I'm wondering if the AC A320 at SFO was in this legacy no-GPS configuration.
Airbubba, that particular procedure is with waypoints and is AR. The ac would have had to be GPS to get the AR approval to use the procedure

Otherwise it's all too easy to land on the parallel taxiway.
Just how many ac use that procedure every day, yet one ac pooches it, and it is too easy to screw up?!?!
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Old 16th Jul 2017, 00:59
  #249 (permalink)  
 
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No one asserted pilot incompetence

Originally Posted by Chuck Canuck
I don't agree with Kal 100% but after rereading the EVA LAX near CFIT incident, I sympathise with non-Western pilots who are almost always painted as incompetent by a broad brush.
Let's back up. Kal's assertion was made in context of carriers, not individual pilots. Reply I posted likewise was completely in context of carriers, also - not individual pilots.
The facts are pretty easy to discern. Without scorn or racist overtones, and also without accusations of incompetence on the part of any pilot involved in any given incident, the overall system of a good many countries all over the world - not just outside a conventional concept of the West - have deficiencies in their NAS, or pilot qualification or recurrent training, or operational methods. Although it speaks blandly the ICAO USOAP - Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme - provides massive increments of data to this effect in the specific context of safety oversight systems (https://www.icao.int/safety/CMAForum/Pages/default.aspx).
It is not about individual aviators. The Asiana pilots in the SFO incident would have checked out, individually, very highly in the simulator, would they not? But despite their skills and abilities, the system within which they operated left something to be desired. The system deserves to be painted with the brush it has earned.
Traveling out of Tokyo Narita to New York on JAL a couple of years ago, a JAL flight crew were having breakfast near my table at the airport hotel. As crisp, precise, and polished looking crew as I ever have seen. Maybe the Japanese cultural imperatives for respect for seniority and hierarchy, and in general, and a kind of immediacy in response to stimuli, at times can be superior to standard Americana/Brit attitudes?
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Old 16th Jul 2017, 01:12
  #250 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by underfire
Airbubba, that particular procedure is with waypoints and is AR. The ac would have had to be GPS to get the AR approval to use the procedure
Are you sure? The FMS Bridge Visual to 28R is an Authorization Required (AR) approach procedure but not, as far as I can see, an AR RNP (Required Navigation Performance) instrument approach.

I believe the FMS Bridge Visual is sometimes described as an RNAV/Visual hybrid approach. You certainly don't always need GPS for RNAV without RNP in my experience.

In fact, in some places with some aircraft you can do an RNP 0.3 approach without GPS using DME/DME when authorized.

From the Jepps:

Some aircraft have RNP approval in their AFM without a GPS sensor. The lowest level of sensors that the FAA will support for RNP service is DME/DME. However, necessary DME NAVAID ground infrastructure may or may not be available at the airport of intended operations. For those locations having an RNAV chart published with LNAV/VNAV minimums, a procedure note may be provided such as “DME/DME RNP-0.3 NA”; this means that RNP aircraft dependent on DME/DME to achieve RNP-0.3 are not authorized to conduct this approach.

Where FAA flight inspection successfully determines the availability and geometry of DME facilities will support RNP-0.3 and that the DME signal meets inspection tolerances, a note such as "DME/DME RNP-0.3 Authorized” will appear on the chart. And where DME facility availability is a factor, the note may read “DME/DME RNP-0.3 Authorized; ABC and XYZ Required”; meaning that ABC and XYZ facilities have been determined by flight inspection to be required in the navigation solution to assure RNP-0.3.
http://www.jeppesen.com/download/bri...en00-arnav.pdf
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Old 16th Jul 2017, 02:57
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Originally Posted by ratpackgreenslug
For every approach put the relevant ILS frequency in the box. Identify said ILS (dits and dars) and fly said ILS as presented by wondrous displays on the panel within 18 inches of one's nose.

This cock up is what happens when children of the Airbus magenta line look out the window and decide to go for it. Wonder where they would have ended up on the Quiet Bridge Visual.
except the line in the Airbus isn't magenta...the ILS is irrelevant on this particular approach..

Last edited by ironbutt57; 16th Jul 2017 at 03:11.
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Old 16th Jul 2017, 05:17
  #252 (permalink)  
 
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The ILS is irrelevant?
Sure you don't follow it early on during the visual but below 1,000' on final it would be very useful to make sure that you're actually aligned with the correct RUNWAY.....

Not to mention that in a lot of cases you get a DME to the threshold......

The ILS where installed and serviceable is never irrelevant, this cockup should prove that.
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Old 16th Jul 2017, 05:28
  #253 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by RAT 5
manually tuning the ILS was probably not a part of their SOPs, it is possible in the Airbus, but generally only used during downgrading of the FMGS system...the FMS approach is displayed as an LNAV track on the nav display..

I'm still waiting for an answer from the Airbus gurus: You've answered the lateral aspect of an FMS approach, if indeed they were doing one inside 4nm, but what were they using (what do you expect) for vertical guidance?
well, I'm no "guru" but I did fly the 320 as PICfor 5 years and a bit, vertical guidance is encoded into the database on certain types of FMS approaches...
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Old 16th Jul 2017, 06:23
  #254 (permalink)  
 
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I don't drive an Airbus and have never been into SFO but in my 30+ years of flying have always stuck with the practice of cross-checking. If I'm flying an RNAV I will have an ILS tuned as well (if available). If I'm flying a visual, especially at night, I will have something set up to confirm the runway centreline (this may be a simple OBS). I will never blindly follow one line, even if this is the one painted out of the window.

To me, the most interesting element of this occurrence is the short conversation about there being obstruction on the 'runway'. I would be intrigued as to why the Airbus crew continued the approach at this point as they clearly had a doubt about the availability of their landing surface.

PS. My day job is flying calibration aircraft where our Differential GPS tells me where we are to within 20mm; company SOPS are that we shall have a secondary means of navigation to cross-check before descent below safety altitude and during all approaches.
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Old 16th Jul 2017, 06:33
  #255 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by Airbubba
I'm wondering if the AC A320 at SFO was in this legacy no-GPS configuration.
ACA759 was a very early A320 (msn 265, built 1991).

Its contemporaries, with AF and LH, for example, were certainly GPS-less.
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Old 16th Jul 2017, 08:20
  #256 (permalink)  
 
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GPS equipped because of Halifax?

Originally Posted by DaveReidUK
ACA759 was a very early A320 (msn 265, built 1991).

Its contemporaries, with AF and LH, for example, were certainly GPS-less.
Yes it’s an early ac. And, according to FlightAware, leased to them. In a recent media release responding to the TSB report on the Halifax crash, AC said they are in a GPS upgrade program for their Airbus narrow bodies that will be completed by the end of the year. By the way, can they direct that their leased ac be upgraded too? Presumably at AC’s expense?
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Old 16th Jul 2017, 08:33
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I agree with using all available resources when flying a visual, and it would be appropriate to tune the ils if you're planning on flying a 3 degree approach on the centreline. It may not always be appropriate as an offset approach combined with PBN vertical profile could trigger a spurious and distracting glideslope warning. Also on a Boeing it can be distracting having both Lnav/vnav pointers and ils ghost pointers on the same deviation display.

Having just checked the plates the quiet visual is not a PBN approach so is visual and no GPS required. The approach is designed for both 28L and R but has a box with "vertical guidance navaid and angle : IGWQ LOC (GS 3 degrees)". This is the 28R ILS so they should have had it tuned in this case. However if you were landing on the left you would have the incorrect ILS tuned - another hole in the cheese in SFO?

I don't agree with banning visual approaches at night. Sometimes you have no choice for a start! I don't believe in the mantra that if someone gets a manoeuvre wrong then we should ban everyone else from doing them. That's partly what's led to our current de-skilling and contributed to the Asiana crash where they were incapable of flying a visual approach. Think far better to train crews how to effectively brief and fly night visuals so they are aware and brief the traps and how they are going to fly it successfully. As professional pilots it's a skill we need to have.

Last edited by Propellerhead; 16th Jul 2017 at 09:10.
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Old 16th Jul 2017, 09:37
  #258 (permalink)  
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the ILS is irrelevant on this particular approach..
If the runway I am landing on has an ILS, the ILS is relevant and will be on at least one tracking display, even if it is the standby HSI.
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Old 16th Jul 2017, 09:42
  #259 (permalink)  

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A few thoughts from someone who, as a helicopter pilot (ex-fixed wing) flies to very poorly lit sites by night (in the past I sometimes had to land at totally unlit sites). For people doing this job, a lit runway or any sort of approach aid is a luxury.

I've flown to airfields where the runway lights are set far dimmer than the taxiway lighting...not a good idea. Over bright lighting on a taxiway can easily hide large objects, even lit ones e.g. the lights of very large aircraft sitting thereon. I'm not saying this happened on this occasion, but it can happen.

When approaching visually by night, it's of paramount importance to keep an open mind. What you're "seeing" might not be what you ought to be looking at. When approaching a night landing site, do NOT commit yourself to "having found it" because lighting can give you a false impression of what you're looking at. Once that mindset is there, other cues, even very obvious ones, might be totally missed, or ignored. This is why the requirement exists to dial the ILS on a visual approach. The ILS is generally less likely to be "tricked" by false cues. The earlier the false visual cues are picked up, the less likely it is that a pilot will be able to give them up and correct the mistake.

One story about false visual "cues" that always sticks in my mind is that of an RAF Wessex carrying out night flying training on Salisbury Plain, at a field location. Although the weather had earlier been very suitable for night flying training, fog suddenly came in at the base field (RAF Upavon, no navaids, no tarmac runway only a NATO 'T' of lights to land at on the grass field). The aircraft were recalled. The last aircraft back had to recover the training underslung load (a couple of barrels of water in a net). They were both experienced pilots and possibly a little over confident. They came in from the east, saw what they took to be the NATO T on the airfield and made an approach to it, obviously with the underslung load dangling below the Wessex.

When they got to the hover at what should have been the middle of the airfield, they realised the lights they had made an approach to was the "Welcome to RAF Upavon" sign outside the camp gates. They were hovering over the main road and had flown between two tall hangars, which they hadn't seen, to get there. The NATO T lights on the airfield were still on, but they had "locked on " to the incorrect visual cues because they were brighter and were seen first.
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Old 16th Jul 2017, 11:01
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but they had "locked on " to the incorrect visual cues because they were brighter and were seen first.

very likely scenario in this instance
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