Rare Lake Tahoe cockpit landing from an MD-80

ChasenSFO

ChasenSFO

hen teaser
Runway 36 is very rarely used for landings at TVL. In fact, my friend who has most of the airliner pics from TVL from the 70s-90s says he never once saw an airliner land on 36. Like MMH and other terrain sensitive airports, Tahoe was usually a 1-way-in(land on 18 over the lake) and 1-way-out(depart 36 over the lake) airport. Since airlines pulled out altogether in 1999 (when the city had to pick between booting one of two start ups using it, a single DC-9 airline named "Allegiant Air" based out of Fresno doing a triangle FAT-LAS-TVL-FAT route and a single 737 airline named "Tahoe Air" that had a plane wet leased from Casino Express flying TVL-LAX/SJC choosing the latter who went bankrupt within 3 months), planes bigger than a large cabin biz jet are very rare these days.

All of this means this video is that much more special, such a gorgeous approach, must have been awesome.
 
While some good CRM there,
I think at some point I would have had to throw a STFU to whoever was jabbering until turnoff. I need to concentrate and don't need commentary all the way to a taxi speed.

On a side note, from the gpws callouts I don't think this approach was stable at all. He got the 500ft call and was still doing 1400fpm in the decent. He got the sink rate all the way until touchdown as well. While the landing looked fine and safe, I can't help but image what we would all be saying if we listened to or read the CVR post runway overrun. Again,
I think these guys did fine, but just armchair quarterbacking here.
 
Pilotdude3407 said:
While some good CRM there,
I think at some point I would have had to throw a STFU to whoever was jabbering until turnoff. I need to concentrate and don't need commentary all the way to a taxi speed.

On a side note, from the gpws callouts I don't think this approach was stable at all. He got the 500ft call and was still doing 1400fpm in the decent. He got the sink rate all the way until touchdown as well. While the landing looked fine and safe, I can't help but image what we would all be saying if we listened to or read the CVR post runway overrun. Again,
I think these guys did fine, but just armchair quarterbacking here.
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It's freight...
 
Pilotdude3407 said:
On a side note, from the gpws callouts I don't think this approach was stable at all. He got the 500ft call and was still doing 1400fpm in the decent. He got the sink rate all the way until touchdown as well. While the landing looked fine and safe, I can't help but image what we would all be saying if we listened to or read the CVR post runway overrun. Again,
I think these guys did fine, but just armchair quarterbacking here.
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Would love to have heard the initial approach briefing. Wonder if those items you brought up were addressed then or if they were completely ignored.
 
I flew in there almost weekly in 1999 and 2000 in a Lear and never saw anything bigger than a 172 use that runway for landing. Allegiant was still coming in there for a little bit when I was there. This approach was completely unstable with that kind of sink rate at the end. The airplane is yelling at you for a reason. Guess the MD80 is able to be saved with that rate so late in the approach. Good CRM would have been to call a go around.
 
I wouldn't be so fast to throw these guys under the unstabilized bus, I think I heard them saying disregard the sink rate and radar alt callouts. That indicates to me that maybe it was already briefed that it would be a nonstandard approach due to the terrain. I have no experience operating out of that airport, but do know that other mountainous places (KASE most notably) those warnings and sink rates are normal.

121 may be different so I not in a position to critique if there are required criteria that I do not know about, maybe some Skywest ASE people can chime in on that.
 
arkflyr said:
I wouldn't be so fast to throw these guys under the unstabilized bus, I think I heard them saying disregard the sink rate and radar alt callouts. That indicates to me that maybe it was already briefed that it would be a nonstandard approach due to the terrain. I have no experience operating out of that airport, but do know that other mountainous places (KASE most notably) those warnings and sink rates are normal.

121 may be different so I not in a position to critique if there are required criteria that I do not know about, maybe some Skywest ASE people can chime in on that.
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I believe we can continue with the GPWS yelling at us as long as the terrain is in sight and the PF replies with "correcting" (and obviously at the PIC's discretion). I've certainly flown and PMed a few approaches were the sink rate alarm went off.

As for the OP: that's a great video. Certainly a tad different from the 121 ops I know, but we operate into airports like MMH, SUN, ASE and OTH which have a relatively short runways with terrain/obstacles around. If the commercial potential exists, they'll find a way to make it operationally viable.
 
I still really think the potential for flights to TVL is there, and the city still has 8 slots(IIRC) for 121 ops. The history of TVL is actually very interesting to me and I've done a ton of research on it and hope to publish an article in one of the airline magazines about it with the help of the friend I mentioned who has all the photos. Here you have one the the top vacation spots for all the NorCal locals, ski resorts that were enough to get an airline to sell packages from London-Reno for, and an airport that was once able to sustain simultaneous service from many commuters and local service airlines while AirCal was flying MD-80s from 5 cities daily. And now it's a ghost town that hasn't had scheduled flights in 15 years. RNO is "close" but it can be a several hour drive in the winter between the two.

My post was worded in a way that made it seem like the city kicked out Tahoe Air, they didn't, Allegiant was booted. I can see why, they had a local airline hoping to grow and a random DC-9 operator based in Fresno to chose from. But seeing how Allegiant has grown in those 15 years, it really makes me wonder what would have become of TVL if Allegiant was chosen. We'll never know I guess. What I do know though is that the Casino Express/Tahoe Air operation just in it's 3 months time got so crappy that when my friend flew on them from SJC, him and his friend got comp upgrades to "Diamond Class" only to find out that the whole plane had been upgraded. That wasn't strange when they boarded and saw that all the seats in economy were MISSING and the premium cabin was the only seats left in the plane! I'd love to hear the story behind that one...
 
I thought there was a lawsuit from residents near the airport preventing commercial air service? Either way I agree. A couple flights a day on an RJ to SFO and or LAX seems like a no brainier.
 
norcalpilot25 said:
I thought there was a lawsuit from residents near the airport preventing commercial air service?
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Yes and no. Long story short from what I can gather, service was bustling up until the early 80s, a little less busy than modern-day ASE but with far more carriers. PSA and Air California kept Electras in the fleet just to get around the pure-jet ban and serve Tahoe. That got old and they both said "duces" dropping TVL and dumping the L-188s leaving just local service airlines(Aspen Air, Golden West, Wings West, ect). Local Service airlines start to be gobbled up or go away, TVL drops the jet-ban and gets AirCal back with MD-80s serving 5 cities at the peak eventually having a virtual monopoly of TVL. AirCal becomes American, cuts most cities from TVL and downgrades to 737s. By the 90s, American downgrades TVL to Wings West Metros and later Saabs from SFO/SJC and the residents get used to having no jets. American pulls out, RenoAir comes in for a hot minute with MD-80s from LAX. The city goes "Woah, what the hell is this jet airplane BS, well I NEVER!". RenoAir doesn't want to deal with it, drops TVL, and the residents agree for very limited jet service with more restrictions. Allegiant and Casino Express bite, residents demand one airline, when that airline goes bust, they make the noise restrictions/red tape so ridiculous that RNO starts marketing itself as the Reno-Tahoe airport and no one ever makes a serious proposal again. But, again, the slots are there. Not sure if an RJ meets the requirements, and there likely isn't much GSE laying around these days, so a re-start would take a lot of ground work. Though most seem to agree service would be successful(hell, MMH has exploded since UA/QX dabbled with intra-CA service). I hope someone makes it work here's an ad from AirCal's TVL restart initially to SNA/SJC/SFO/BUR.
OCTVL.jpg
 
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