> 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.
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?