Fatigued crew call pan-pan into MUC
 

Dead-Tired.eu News - Fatigued Pilots issue Distress Signal on Approach to Munich

Will be interesting to read the report once it comes out.

My initial reaction is good going by the crew - they have detected a threat and proceeded to migitate it, where it would have been "easier" to keep quiet about it :D. Laudable indeed.

Apparently the PAN was declared to get protected areas for an auto land as otherwise that wouldn't have been granted. Standing SOP at that airline is to do an auto land when realizing that the crew is fatigued.

There is a link on mentioned webpage..
Sicherheitsrisiken im Flugverkehr - WDR 2 Der Sender

Basically, "AB isn't "available" for any comment....":ugh:

"..to do an auto land when realizing that the crew is fatigued."
Very nice SOP , what about if there is a VOR Approach at fatigued destination?

Chances are that an aircraft with auto land capability would not be operating at a field where only a VOR approach is available.

Me no gets this...

I don't think you have taught this one through:D

Statistically he may be correct, but it hasn't been thought through either. :cool:

Is there actually a section of their ops manual that states an auto land is to be carried out if both pilots are fatigued? Only an airline industry manager, who never flies or has never even held a licence to do so, can come up with such a solution. After all, an auto land always works just fine and requires hardly any concentration or alertness.....:hmm:

In my previous airline pilots were worked beyond fatigue to the point driving home from the airport was sometimes an unacceptable risk. The management came up with a fatigue reporting system to replace calling in sick, but then of course hired only 200hr cadet co-pilots with £100k of debt on :mad: temporary contracts who were paid by the hour, but only if they showed up for work. Guess how many of them called in fatigued.

And another airline suggests to mitigate fatigue an auto land is accomplished as a "solution". A rostering system that prevents the on-set of fatigue in the first place perhaps?

The only thing that keeps me from falling asleep is disconnecting and landin the aircraft manually. The scanning and following of an autoland is more fatigue inducing in my experience, and requires a very clear mind to recognize failures and out of limit situations.

No, not necessarily.

Don't know about number of sectors, delays, tech trouble......

.

Funny, that. We operate a B773 into Quito after an 11 hr flight.
And there is no autoland possible in Quito as everybody that operates there knows.
Both rwy directions require a visual final approach!

What about multiple sector day's?
When starting your last sector you might be feeling ok. That can change after 2 hrs in flight.

Divert? Carry on and hope for the best and blame the airline later?

Good job by the crew, wonder what EASAs reaction was when they heard about this...

EASA do not care. They are the bitches of airline management.::mad:

I have thought about it, and I have no idea what Jet Jockey means.:bored:

OK, OK, enough already!

Now that I think about it I don't even understand my own post! :O

Woke up from a short night sleep, was still in a daze when I read and wrote my post... Forgive me my fellow PPRuNers! :{

Sleeper:

Why do you consider an ILS with a DA of 652 and vis of 3.0 km, a visual approach? Won't that ILS (Rwy 35) support an autoland albeit with those minimums?

I presume your company isn't qualified to do the two RNP AR IAPs:

Runway 17 508 and 2.6 km.
Runway 35 542 and 3.0 km.

Yes I couldn't understand either the "only visual" approaches into Quito when apparently there are published approaches there.

I can only assume the high DA for the ILS on 35 is due because of obstacles.

Although you could possibly use the aircraft's auto land feature there I don't think it would be a wise procedure to do so. CAT II and III airports require special features to be certified to those minimums which include protected zones to avoid false signals to be received by the aircraft's onboard equipment especially during an auto land.

The ils gp on rwy 35 hits the runway (no pun intended) far beyond the touchdown zone. If you would autoland the beast you will have problems stopping the aircraft before the end, especially in wet conditions. So autolands are not authorized in Quito.
In reality you would leave the gp at 2 miles and "dive" down to the touchdown zone. I would call that a visual final approach.

As for your other remark,
Yes we are qualified for rnp-ar approaches.
Again these are not approaches you can autoland from. Thus again visual finals with the same dive-down for rwy 35. Don't forget the final approach speed is about 180 groundspeed due to the altitude.

And guy's, I didn't say visual approach. I said visual Final approach.

Makes me wonder how many times this happens every day around the world:yuk:, difference being that this crew had the guts to actually ''report it''.
As far as an autoland it is a good solution altough a lot of concentration is requiered, and a lot of things can trigger a GA, not something you want being fatigued.
Anyway it would be good if more crews did report this kind of situations, don't you think?