Lufty at SFO

[hans brinker]

Originally Posted by allaru

Lastly ATC needs to bear in mind that the pilots may not have been in or out of SFO recently so tear-assing around flying visuals at night might be ok for US carriers that go there all the time but is probably not appropriate for an international carrier.

As said numerous times already:
The only difference between these visual approaches and instrument approaches is the requirement for the following aircraft to keep the preceding aircraft in sight. That is it. Everything else is the same. Altitude, speed and vectors to the final approach course are the same as for the ILS, and every US carrier requires the use of an ILS for guidance when available. This is not some hot-dogging around the pattern.

[WHBM]

Originally Posted by hans brinker

Everything else is the same. Altitude, speed and vectors to the final approach course are the same as for the ILS, and every US carrier requires the use of an ILS for guidance when available. This is not some hot-dogging around the pattern.

Just questioning here, but then how did Air Canada at SFO then end up aligning with a taxyway full of aircraft at the hold instead of the assigned runway ? Different requirement by Canadian airlines ? Crew not following SOPs ?

[hans brinker]

Originally Posted by WHBM

Just questioning here, but then how did Air Canada at SFO then end up aligning with a taxyway full of aircraft at the hold instead of the assigned runway ? Different requirement by Canadian airlines ? Crew not following SOPs ?

"The NTSB determined the probable cause was the Air Canada flight crew's confusion of the runway with the parallel taxiway, with contributing causes including the crew's failure to use the instrument landing system (ILS), as well as pilot fatigue. ", from wikipedia.

"Air Canada’s FMS Bridge visual approach procedure to runway 28R required pilots of Airbus A319/A320/A321 airplanes to manually enter (tune) the instrument landing system (ILS) frequency into the airplane’s flight management computer (FMC) to provide backup lateral guidance (via the localizer) to the runway.13 The FMS Bridge visual approach to runway 28R was the only approach in Air Canada’s Airbus A320 database that required manual tuning for a navigational aid.14 As part of his pilot monitoring duties, the first officer would have used the multifunction control and display unit (MCDU) to program required settings, but he did not enter the ILS frequency into the radio/navigation page. The first officer reported, during a postincident interview, that he “must have missed” the radio/navigation page and was unsure how that could have happened. Also, the captain did not verify, during the approach briefing, that the ILS frequency had been entered, and neither flight crewmember noticed that the ILS frequency was not shown on the primary flight displays (PFD).15 FDR data showed that the ILS frequency was not tuned and that no frequency had been entered.." from the NTSB report.

[Sailvi767]

Originally Posted by Request Orbit

.65 S9 ATIS Procedures

2.9.3 Content e)
“Instrument/visual approach/es in use. Specify landing runway/s unless the runway is that to which the instrument approach is made. Before advertising non-precision approaches, priority should be given to available precision, then APV approaches”

Got any reference to say this doesn’t apply at KSFO? Seems to be yet another example on what is an increasingly growing list of “efficiency” over following the rules as they’ve been notified.

SFO was VFR during the incident in question. If they went to IFR approaches they would need to divert and ground hold a significant amount of traffic.

[cheff92]

Originally Posted by Sailvi767

SFO was VFR during the incident in question. If they went to IFR approaches they would need to divert and ground hold a significant amount of traffic.

Is GA always an option?

[BoeingDriver99]

The thread that just won’t die