> Lufthansa 458 heavy, just for my planning purposes and for the Final controller's planning purposes, can you maintain visual separation with the aircraft at night?
> 458 heavy, exactly that is what is not allowed [laughs]
The controller was trying to give the pilot an out by allowing him to comply with his company's procedures prohibiting visual approaches, but allowing him to make an instrument landing so long as he was capable of looking out his window to ensure that he has specific other aircraft in sight. Note that this is required for parallel landings at SFO because of the very close proximity of the runways otherwise prohibits simultaneous approaches.
The problem is that, under the FAA regulations, all aircraft operating in visual conditions (which includes a clear night) have a duty to maintain vigilance "so as to see and avoid other aircraft" regardless of whether an operation is conducted under instrument flight rules or visual flight rules. 14 C.F.R. § 91.113 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/91.113)
In essence, the Lufthansa pilot was telegraphing his refusal to even comply with the basic flight regulations that all aircraft have to comply with (regardless of instrument or visual flight rules).
The combination of (1) refusing to accept a visual approach, and (2) refusing to even abide by the minimum requirements for operation in U.S. airspace (to see and avoid other aircraft), even on an instrument approach, caused the excessive delay.
You're quoting from a section on right of way and collision avoidance. Being asked to maintain visual separation for flying in the pattern (instead of radar separation) is not the same thing as "we expect you to regularly look out the window to avoid a collision with other aircraft as a backup to ATC fucking up and collision warning not working."
They ran down the aircraft's fuel, contributed to crew fatigue, and their language and conduct on the radio was petulant, at best. This is all because US controllers use visual approaches because they can fit more planes in.
The entire system is overloaded and overworked, and the strain is showing in skyrocketing near-miss incidents.
> "we expect you to regularly look out the window to avoid a collision with other aircraft as a backup to ATC fucking up and collision warning not working."
If I’m understanding correctly, the ATC is asking the pilot if they can maintain visual separation with traffic landing on the parallel runway. The pilot says no meaning they need the added accommodation of being brought in without parallel traffic. For better or for worse, maintaining visual separation with parallel traffic is the normal course of business there…the situation wouldn’t arise because of an ATC fuckup. Furthermore, in such a scenario, the collision avoidance system is a backup to the pilot, not the other way around.
You can see an example of a parallel landing at SFO (on 28L) after sunset here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ1mUkxj0UM. I first spot the strobe of the other aircraft (eventually landing on 28R) at 4:00, and at 7:00 the aircraft are parallel and in close proximity. For comparison, here's one in full darkness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m2sR3lVotw
+1 to the above. ATC is working to get *ALL* traffic going and if one pilot doesn’t want to do what everyone else is doing then this pilot goes to the end of the line. Company procedures or not, SFO parallel arrivals require visual separation in VMC. If you don’t like it, then hold and wait till ATC can squeeze you in without someone else landing on parallel. ATC has no obligation to “special treat” someone who didn’t declare emergency and force others to wait while someone takes their time flying ILS with (high) IFR separation requirements on a CAVU (celling and visibility unlimited) day.
SFO has published ILS approaches for 28L and 28R. They have NOTAMS indicating that the ILS is available except for certain dates. ATC is 100% in the wrong for prioritizing throughput over safety. At some point their luck will run out. If ATC does not want to make ILS available then they need to communicate that explicitly and not waste everyone's time with a penalty hold.
The a comment from VASAviation that goes along with that video:
"Thanks to this Norcal Tracon controller who reached me to give his point of view of a situation he knows well, as he is a very experienced controller in the Bay Area. He knows the controllers in the video and knows procedures in good detail.
If I have missed something in the video that you are interested to know, please leave a comment. I included all relevant factors that I considered of importance and even trimming things out, it's still a 26 minute video. [CLIP]
Date was 17 October at 03:40 UTC and on. Just in case you want to inquire into it a bit deeper.
Point of the video is providing more context to the original video: ATIS, other airplanes interactions, the entire airspace view... and of course the valuable commentary of a real controller who works that one and other similar positions daily.
You can stand for the controller's or pilot's side, but please be respectful. I know the majority of the audience is not real pilots, controllers, dispatchers... so if you are, please show respect to them and exhibit your knowledge on the topic so they can understand.
My final conclusion to this is that Lufthansa (unlike Philippines) reached SFO and requested the ILS when the arrivals streams were busiest, thence receiving indefinite delay vectors. Nobody's fault. Just bad timing regarding the totality of inbounds.
The odd thesis here seems to be that the lufthansa flight has to bear the entire burden of the delay. Eventually there will be a gap when you have runway space free. Rather than shove the lufthansa flight in right away, then cause every further flight to be delayed until that gap appears, lufthansa has to wait for the gap themselves. "No visual approaches" is treated as a sort of deviance which the ATC won't allow the effects of it to cascade to anyone but lufthansa. This added context makes it clearer exactly what the OP article is criticizing: the ATC had the complete ability to let the lufthansa flight land whenever they liked, but was choosing not to, and there are certain negative effects which that choice could have.
> so long as he was capable of looking out his window to ensure that he has specific other aircraft in sight
But not just aircraft landing on the parallel runway; a visual approach means the pilot is responsible for maintaining separation from the aircraft ahead of him, correct? Presumably the requirement by Lufthansa for ILS approach at night is due to concerns about the reduced ability of the pilot to do that in the dark.
The issue is the parallel runway, not the traffic in front, which has a much larger separation. What the environment at SFO does not permit is for a pilot to be able to rely on the controller to guarantee separation from the airplane landing in parallel.
The other problem with the Lufthansa is, being a heavy, it needs to be the one staggered slightly behind the other aircraft for wake turbulence reasons.
> The issue is the parallel runway, not the traffic in front, which has a much larger separation.
Fair enough, but it's still true that doing a visual approach means the pilot is responsible for both, correct? There's no such thing as "an ILS approach where the pilot agrees to visually maintain separation from aircraft landing on the parallel runway", correct?
> What the environment at SFO does not permit is for a pilot to be able to rely on the controller to guarantee separation from the airplane landing in parallel.
So basically, if SFO were doing all ILS approaches, capacity would be cut in half because the planes would have to alternate landing on the two parallel runways instead of landing side by side?
> There's no such thing as "an ILS approach where the pilot agrees to visually maintain separation from aircraft landing on the parallel runway"
Not a cleared instrument approach, but nothing stops the pilot from following the ILS procedure with approval from ATC on such a "visual" approach.
A full ILS approach could be approved with an aircraft landing in parallel, however, if the required separation was supplied by the cooperating aircraft trailing just behind the ILS-landing aircraft.
> The following conditions apply to visual approaches being conducted simultaneously to parallel, intersecting, and converging runways, as appropriate:
> Parallel runways separated by less than 2,500 feet. Unless approved separation is provided, an aircraft must report sighting a preceding aircraft making an approach (instrument or visual) to the adjacent parallel runway. When an aircraft reports another aircraft in sight on the adjacent extended runway centerline and visual separation is applied, controllers must advise the succeeding aircraft to maintain visual separation. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/atc_html...
If the Lufthansa was not heavy (and thus not required to slightly trail the parallel aircraft), the required separation could have been supplied by the other pilot, and it would apparently comply with Lufthansa's SOP. It's somewhat counterintuitive to me that Lufthansa would prefer to trust any pilot other than its own to provide the required separation.
> nothing stops the pilot from following the ILS procedure with approval from ATC on such a "visual" approach
But that wasn't what ATC was offering the Lufthansa crew, was it? If that were what ATC was offering, I would expect to see something more explicit in the voice traffic, something like "we can grant you permission to follow the ILS approach procedure if you agree to maintain visual separation from the aircraft coming in on the parallel runway". If the Lufthansa pilot is on the hook to follow company policy requiring an ILS approach, I wouldn't expect him to hang his hat on something cryptic from ATC that could be interpreted in multiple different ways. I would expect him to need something explicit.
Yeah ... no. It's either an instrument approach or it's a visual approach. ATC trying to "give the pilot an out" is bullshit. What the pilot needed, and didn't get, was clarity without attitude. "See and avoid" is endemic to flying, but that cannot be stretched into forced acceptance of a visual approach clearance.
That’s entirely lost in translation due to language barrier. Expecting a non American to pick up on that is futile at best.
Having that said, it’s incredible that pilots forget time and time again that as PIC they are the drivers of the airplane, not ATC.
This pilot could have easily declared an emergency and be asked to be diverted to SFO and be number 1. Deal with the ramifications later. And as we saw from American in JFK who was in a rush to get home early, nothing happens.
It's not as simple as that. The pilot says he knows he can do it, and doesn't want to because it will fuck up things, big time.
It would do so for everyone. Both other crews in the air, and ATC. It would generate a huge load of work for the controllers (and that can lead to fuckups)...and end up causing numerous other flights to be delayed in landing. Flights with tired crews and fuel concerns of their own.
> Is this normal for ATC to communicate like this? This sounds like some people I worked with in previous job with much lower stakes involved…
Caveat, while flying I'd hate to hear this from a controller if I'm on the edge of consuming my reserve fuel. But before judging this particular controller I'd be interested to know what the other comms traffic was like, both with this plane and also the pace of the rest of the arrivals. I don't want to pick on ATC if the seemingly sudden onset of aggression was cherry-picked for the blog from a conversation that had already tried to handle the matter politely.
It's also important to understand that many US ATC facilities are understaffed, the controllers are overworked, and a high incidence of rostering them for extra shifts will leave them fatigued. It doesn't make it any easier for the pilots to get the plane on the ground when they're getting short shrift from ATC like this, but the core of the problem is ATC training and turnover rates. Not one particular controller getting cranky with pilots because he/she is powertripping.
The ATC frequency isn't for complaints. The controller needs the frequency free to communicate with other planes. When he says "I can’t have this conversation with you," he literally means that he cannot have the conversation and continue to direct traffic.
What's printed in the article is a summary of what was actually said. The Lufthansa pilot was talking much more than necessary.
> The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has banned foreign pilots from making visual approaches to San Francisco airport runways 28 left and right.
This was in 2013. My understanding is some foreign carriers took this into company SOP.
> While a delay in air traffic is understandable, adhering to the announced duration (which clearly had the characteristics of an Expected Approach Time) is crucial to ensure safety. In this case, the crew experienced confusion when their EAT was not met, leading to concerns about fuel reserves and potential emergencies. Efficient coordination between ATC and crews is essential to prevent such situations
Sounds like atc having in fact time to fuck around was the root of the issue here
If this is their standard procedure surely it made its way into the flight plan they filed. A Lufthansa requirement for an ILS approach should've come as no surprise to anyone at SFO.
If the ILS was unavailable for some reason there should've been a relevant NOTAM, in which case the crew would've either diverted or not performed the flight.
And lastly, even among domestic airlines nighttime visual approaches are not always allowed by SOP. e.g.
This same airport had a crash during visual approach during the day no? Seems wild to give huge delays to anyone not willing to do a visual approach, it's clearly pressuring pilots to accept the visual approach when they may not be comfortable with it.
And I do believe the atc has to provide accurate (to their knowledge) accounts of what the delay is, to ensure flights can divert before being out of fuel. Even saying 'we don't know how long the delay is' is at least information. It seems incredibly clear from the logs the controller was being an ass as well. No need to go 0-100 part when asked about how long the delay is, pilots literally need that information.
SF politics come into play here as well. There’s been talk of expanding the runways so visual approaches wouldn’t be needed for decades now, but Aaron Peskin seems to have made it his personal issue to kill it at every opportunity.
Have there been any serious proposals or discussion in the last two decades? SFO’s current master plan estimates a growth of 50% more passengers and aircraft operations before maxing the current capacity.
Not since the original proposal ~20 years ago, Peskin has made comments since reiterating that he wouldn't let it happen. We may not be at capacity but SFO has a pretty terrible on time percentage, and traffic slows massively when there's bad weather.
"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. A retired pilot stated the runway confusion that almost happened "probably came close to the greatest aviation disaster in history"[2][3][4][5] as five airplanes and potentially over 1,000 passengers were at imminent risk of a disaster greater than the Tenerife airport disaster."
Isn’t San Francisco famous for its fog, and aren’t flight timetables set 6 months in advance? How does the system cope when the weather is bad and you have to halve the number of flights landing? Surely the timetables must have a fair amount of slack for days when an ILS landing is required?
Should have declared a fuel emergency and fucked that controller well and good. These games that ATC in America plays with safety to improve throughput (read profits) need to end before we have 400 souls lost.
Absolutely not. If it's not a real fuel emergency, you don't want regulators questioning your ability as a pilot in a foreign country. If it is a real fuel emergency, you don't want to put lives at risk over a spat with ATC. Play the game, go home late, but safe, and let the internet deal with ATC and maybe Lufthansa can rethink its policies regarding SFO.
Agreed. Doing it to mess with the controller is going to get the crew and the airline in hot water.
That said, there is a fair amount of discretion on the Captain's part, and if the pilot was unable to land at Oakland for an unforeseen reason, such as an ILS malfunction at OAK, then declaring a fuel emergency sooner may be justified.
Knowing that fatigue may also be a factor, which could also result in a missed approach, and they are required to have sufficient fuel for several ILS approaches before diverting, without using their final reserves, could push them to declare a fuel emergency.
Typically, the Captain would say something along the lines of "I can only hold another 10 minutes, before declaring fuel emergency", prompting ATC to get them sequenced for approach promptly.
How safe are an extra hour around KSFO, an hour turnaround and 45 more minutes flying after a long haul flight because an ATC wants to feel like the unquestioned king?
I wonder how they do that. There's only one SFO-FRA flight per day flown by Lufthansa, so if a pilot gets sick, you don't want that delaying the flight and causing a rebooking headache.
I guess they have contracts for all kinds of similar contingencies. Maybe the whole Star Alliance has one for SFO, or operators of various other intercontinental flights do.
You can always continue to hold until you're into an emergency and then declare it. I mean it'll probably trash your career but it might impact the ATC too. Hooray?
Unless the ATIS specifically stated that you should expect a visual approach, the controller violated FARs and is part of a criminal conspiracy. Also, phrases and specific words that controllers are allowed and required to use are well documented. The transcript revealed the use of non-standard terms; which is very dangerous when a controller does not precisely communicate with a pilot using English as a non-primary language.
I am a licensed (private) pilot with an instrument rating. I fly a GA airplane aprox 150 hr/yr, mostly for business. Within the previous two years, FAA controllers have given me incorrect instructions in three seperate instances, twice while I was deep in the soup. The controllers failed to correct their errors even after my readback, then yelled at me when I wasn't going where they wanted me to go. Each time, I had a camera on the panel and the camera's audio connected to the ICS and radios.
The latest incident, the controller told me to call them after landing. I refused to talk to them without legal counsel, so they forwarded the incident to an Air Safety Investigator. My lawyer listened to the controller's many falsehoods, then listened to the investigator ask me questions. Then my lawyer talked to the investigator as follows:
lawyer - have you pulled the tapes?
FAA - yes, but I have not listened to them.
lawyer - do you think that the controller could have given him an incorrect vector?
FAA - not possible.
lawyer - please listen to this. [plays video on computer]
FAA - [after playing video] we cannot further discuss this. We will need [controller] to bring a union rep.
me - Why don't we send the video to the FBI. Isn't it a felony to lie to a federal investigator?
FAA - [quickly exits room]
Most enroute controllers are working six days a week. I do not care, so am I. Many, perhaps most, experienced controllers are making north of $200k. I am not.
Final note. When dealing with any level of authority, record everything. Put cameras in your home, in your vehicles, and on your body. The authorities, whether it be the local police or the feds, are not there to help. You will lose money and time and freedom if you cannot document their incompetence and malfeasance; and even then you may still go to jail.
Cool story, but of course the SFO ATIS specifically mentions visual approaches when they’re in use. In fact it’s night VMC right now and the current ATIS says:
SFO prioritizes non-precision approaches because they're prioritizing throughput over safety. They got lucky with Air Canada, but at some point their luck will run out. The bigger issue here is that ATC gave the flight a 10 minute penalty instead of denying clearly communicating that they would not make an ILS approach available.
You can see that the ILS will be non-op on 5 December (and 6 December for 28L). If SFO is going to deny use of ILS they should clarify in the published approach procedures and/or in a NOTAM. As it is the ATC had no business trying to bully a pilot into doing something they're not comfortable with.
Visual approaches are not non-precision approaches. They’re visual approaches.
Lufthansa wasn’t denied the ILS, they were put in a hold until separation could be created. The same thing happens every day at airports all over the world. The difference is the vast majority of pilots don’t whine about it on a congested frequency and expect to get priority.
And any pilot who is not comfortable performing a visual approach shouldn’t be at the controls of an airliner.
> Lufthansa 458 heavy, just for my planning purposes and for the Final controller's planning purposes, can you maintain visual separation with the aircraft at night?
> 458 heavy, exactly that is what is not allowed [laughs]
The controller was trying to give the pilot an out by allowing him to comply with his company's procedures prohibiting visual approaches, but allowing him to make an instrument landing so long as he was capable of looking out his window to ensure that he has specific other aircraft in sight. Note that this is required for parallel landings at SFO because of the very close proximity of the runways otherwise prohibits simultaneous approaches.
The problem is that, under the FAA regulations, all aircraft operating in visual conditions (which includes a clear night) have a duty to maintain vigilance "so as to see and avoid other aircraft" regardless of whether an operation is conducted under instrument flight rules or visual flight rules. 14 C.F.R. § 91.113 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/91.113)
In essence, the Lufthansa pilot was telegraphing his refusal to even comply with the basic flight regulations that all aircraft have to comply with (regardless of instrument or visual flight rules).
The combination of (1) refusing to accept a visual approach, and (2) refusing to even abide by the minimum requirements for operation in U.S. airspace (to see and avoid other aircraft), even on an instrument approach, caused the excessive delay.