Landing Incident @ SFO

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Starting 2000Z july 7th which is about noon local time july 6th i believe.

Pacific daylight time is UTC-7hrs. You're looking at 1300 on July 7th, still a few hours short.

Like I said the GS was definitely out, but I was making sure that people know that the LOC frequency was still in service.

Maybe they thought they were flying an ILS and didn't realize they had the GS for a while or maybe they somehow picked up a false GS or maybe it has nothing to do with the approach they were flying. Only the NTSB and a.netters will be able to figure this one out.
 
Question for the Boeing guys, cause I think the fms are somewhat similar. If the ILS is out, and you have no other vertical guidance, can you build or put in a visual with vertical guidance as a reference in the fms? In the CRJ FMS, you can put in a visual approach, keep the needles in white, and have a snow flake to follow to help with vertical guidance on runways with no ils or papi/vasi. Just for situational awareness. Overkill, I know. But I am not chuck Yeager, and my motto in the cockpit is use all available resources to help you out.
 
I wonder if you took away all vertical guidance at let's say JFK, and ran straight visuals all day, how many go-arounds would there be due to unstablized approaches. I'm guessing more than people think. It's not about how good you fly, it's human factors. Take away something a guy has seen for months, and then throw a wrench into it and take it away, see how they respond.
When you get to this level - and yes, the regional airlines who happily and without incident fly into and out of SFO all day every day qualify as "this level", there are few excuses on a CAVU day.

That said we have little idea what happened beyond "there was an accident."
 
Pacific daylight time is UTC-7hrs. You're looking at 1300 on July 7th, still a few hours short.

Like I said the GS was definitely out, but I was making sure that people know that the LOC frequency was still in service.

Maybe they thought they were flying an ILS and didn't realize they had the GS for a while or maybe they somehow picked up a false GS or maybe it has nothing to do with the approach they were flying. Only the NTSB and a.netters will be able to figure this one out.


Regarding the GS OTS, that's definitely been for awhile now. I was there a couple of weeks ago and it was OTS, and I was there again on Wed, landed on 28L and the both 28s were still NOTAM'd OTS. We did use the localizer, there was NO false GS or any indication of a GS.
 
Name one.
Peshawar for example. EK has taken 777s in there. Just one runway, no ILS, they advertise a PAPI but it doesn't work half the time from a friend at EK that has gone in there a couple times. I can only imagine airports in China that don't have ILS and just a PAPI or not even that.
 
Yeah, you can fly a LOC approach using a VNAV path that has a altitude of 50 feet AGL crossing the threshold and has a hard altitiude at the FAF.
 
When you get to this level - and yes, the regional airlines who happily and without incident fly into and out of SFO all day every day qualify as "this level", there are few excuses on a CAVU day.

That said we have little idea what happened beyond "there was an accident."
I'd tread lightly on that one. When was the last time those guys had a landing? Regional guys can do it up to 20 times a trip. These guys are lucky to get 3 a month. We don't know if they were a reserve crew who got called out to do this trip. I see where you're going with this but remember these guys don't land nearly as often as you and I do.
 
When you get to this level - and yes, the regional airlines who happily and without incident fly into and out of SFO all day every day qualify as "this level", there are few excuses on a CAVU day.

That said we have little idea what happened beyond "there was an accident."

Totally agree. But "this level" here in the states and "this level" in Korea are 2 different things.
 
Peshawar for example. EK has taken 777s in there. Just one runway, no ILS, they advertise a PAPI but it doesn't work half the time from a friend at EK that has gone in there a couple times. I can only imagine airports in China that don't have ILS and just a PAPI or not even that.


It's one thing to go to an airport you know for a fact that doesn't have an ILS. It's another to show up to an airport after flying all night, expect to just ride the ILS down, and then discover a few miles out that the GS is OTS. Obviously a review of the NOTAMS would prepare the crew well in advance, but sometimes stuff happens. Maybe they missed it, maybe they didn't bother to read them, who knows. But to all of a sudden have to prepare for no vertical guidance at an unfamiliar airport when you are tired and totally screwed up on your body clock is not a good situation.

I know SFO as well as any airport. Actually, SFO feels like a small airport that happens to be a pretty big international airport. I pretty much ALWAYS know what to expect (at SFO), from arrivals/departures, approaches, and taxi routes. SFO is far more predictable to me than even my home airport (DEN), and I can shoot visuals into there all day long without a GS or VASI. But that's only because I know the place so damn well. This crew did not have that benefit, and that is a HUGE factor for something like a GS being out on both runways.
 
Question for the Boeing guys, cause I think the fms are somewhat similar. If the ILS is out, and you have no other vertical guidance, can you build or put in a visual with vertical guidance as a reference in the fms? In the CRJ FMS, you can put in a visual approach, keep the needles in white, and have a snow flake to follow to help with vertical guidance on runways with no ils or papi/vasi. Just for situational awareness. Overkill, I know. But I am not chuck Yeager, and my motto in the cockpit is use all available resources to help you out.

I haven't been following this one closely enough to know if it was VMC or not during said "approach", but I am going to guess based off the pictures that it was. If you need an ILS, or a PAPI, or a VASI, or a GPS GS to shoot a basically safe visual approach in VMC where the f'ing back end of the airplane doesn't break off on the runway, you have absolutely.....ABSOLUTELY......no business ever flying an airplane now or ever. That is the most basic example of complete and utter incompetence I can think of. If they actually did put it down thousands of feet into the under run like it appears, I hope they have everything stripped from them and never fly an airplane again. That just boggles the mind more than I can comprehend right now, especially for a crew that could have been flying my family.
 
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