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A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

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Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#71

Post by KennyBlanken »

markus92 wrote: post #58
reso wrote: post #45

> Pilot: If we are not set up for base soon, we will have to declare a fuel emergency and that would really fuck up your sequence. > Controller: What is your divert field? > Pilot: Oakland > Controller: Ok you need vectors to Oakland? > Pilot: No, my company forbids visual separation at night, what is the problem here? > Controller: I can't have this conversation with you. You either divert to Oakland or you can cont…

Pilot was bluffing. If they call an emergency, they can do whatever they want. But they can't just call a fuel emergency if they have enough fuel to divert to a viable alternate - that's not how the system is supposed to work. They're supposed to divert if they get close to minimum fuel and can't land at their primary airport. Of course, if it's a real emergency they can call any emergency (weather at alternate preve…

It's a safety issue when the plane is getting low on fuel and the crew are fatigued from a long international flight, and the only reason they're being told no is because of policies designed to maximize airport/airline profits.

Controllers had hours of notice the flight would need an ILS approach. They petulantly ignored it because ILS approaches take up more space in the pattern, which means less landings per hour, which means less profit for the airport operator.

In the EU visual separation at night is not permitted but it's routinely done in the US because airports and airlines can run more flights in and out of the airport due to closer separation distances and it also reduces controller labor.

Airlines are pushing the system to the breaking point.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#72

Post by ian-g »

markus92 wrote: post #58
reso wrote: post #45

> Pilot: If we are not set up for base soon, we will have to declare a fuel emergency and that would really fuck up your sequence. > Controller: What is your divert field? > Pilot: Oakland > Controller: Ok you need vectors to Oakland? > Pilot: No, my company forbids visual separation at night, what is the problem here? > Controller: I can't have this conversation with you. You either divert to Oakland or you can cont…

Pilot was bluffing. If they call an emergency, they can do whatever they want. But they can't just call a fuel emergency if they have enough fuel to divert to a viable alternate - that's not how the system is supposed to work. They're supposed to divert if they get close to minimum fuel and can't land at their primary airport. Of course, if it's a real emergency they can call any emergency (weather at alternate preve…

That would also mean it's really incredibly difficult to declare a fuel emergency around SFO, since Oakland and San Jose and (I guess, if it were really urgent) Moffat Field are all a five minute flight away, right?

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#73

Post by KennyBlanken »

CaliforniaKarl wrote: post #52
chris_va wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also fly a bit in the bay area ... ATC is supposed to accommodate to the best of their ability. Accommodating here could have been just waiting for a natural gap (which is what I think happened), but I think ATC should have just called Oakland center immediately and had a gap created for 10-20 minutes in the future. It is not like they were the only aircraft on the ILS approach that evening... Though, as I am not a…

The video posted by u/hansenq showed what flows were like, with traffic from the east sequenced as far out as Salt Lake City. It probably would’ve needed coordination with Oakland, LA, and Salt Lake centers

This flight came from Germany. They had hours of notice to find it an ILS slot in the pattern.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#74

Post by reso »

markus92 wrote: post #58
reso wrote: post #45

> Pilot: If we are not set up for base soon, we will have to declare a fuel emergency and that would really fuck up your sequence. > Controller: What is your divert field? > Pilot: Oakland > Controller: Ok you need vectors to Oakland? > Pilot: No, my company forbids visual separation at night, what is the problem here? > Controller: I can't have this conversation with you. You either divert to Oakland or you can cont…

Pilot was bluffing. If they call an emergency, they can do whatever they want. But they can't just call a fuel emergency if they have enough fuel to divert to a viable alternate - that's not how the system is supposed to work. They're supposed to divert if they get close to minimum fuel and can't land at their primary airport. Of course, if it's a real emergency they can call any emergency (weather at alternate preve…

Communicating to a controller that they are close to a fuel emergency is not a threat, it is good practice. People have died because their pilots did not communicate their fuel situation sufficiently to their controllers [1].

This was communicated in this instance, and the controller maintained that to land at SFO, they would have to risk running out of fuel, since the controller refused to give a time-window for landing, or to declare an emergency.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_052

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#75

Post by KennyBlanken »

mandevil wrote: post #38
karcass wrote: post #33

I got my pilot's license in the Bay Area and transited SFO's class bravo frequently. The region has one of the world's most complex airspaces (a B, two Cs, and a crap-ton of Ds), and SFO has a mind-boggling amount of traffic for an airport of its size. Based on my lived experience in that airspace, I think ATC did the best they could in a tough position, and I think that Lufthansa asking for special treatment is the…

They normally do- this flight left MUC two hours late which was why it was part of the VFR landing sequence on this one day and is not normally a problem.

And the flight is twelve hours, with a filed flight plan. None of the controllers were even on-shift when SFO knew they'd need to have an ILS slot for the flight. That's why the pilot is exasperated when he finds out there isn't one.

It's like calling a year in advance for a dinner reservation and showing up and having to wait 45 minutes for your table "because it's a really busy night."

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#76

Post by MBCook »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #61
Hansenq wrote: post #29

There's a follow up video to the one linked in the story that provides a lot more context missing in this piece. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zHxdn8oz20 Basically, SFO normally does VFR parallel approaches at night. Approach sequences these approaches miles beforehand, so there can be a chain of 10-20 aircraft all sequenced to land before responsibility is even transferred to SFO's tower. The incident happened du…

You're leaving out that they had a filed flight plan which for an international flight means controllers had many hours of notice as to when the flight was scheduled to arrive and that they would be looking for an ILS approach and it was the responsibility of approach controllers to have a spot in the pattern for them. They arrived in the area on time, and controllers had not allocated it a spot, which is why the pil…

Arrived on time? They left hours late from the departing airport.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#77

Post by tomohawk »

perihelions wrote: post #66

There was a major airliner crash at JFK caused (partly) by poor communication between pilots and ATC, resulting in the plane running out of fuel, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_052 (1990) https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-words-not-spoken-the... There was a similar fact pattern to the OP: the pilots relied on time estimates from ATC which turned out to be inaccurate, - "Due to the air traffic cont…

As a pilot, your first job is to fly the airplane, not listen to ATC.

A family member was a commercial airline pilot for many decades, and had stories of having to declare an emergency when ATC direction conflicted with facts in the air. ATC would get pissed, but they're safely on the ground.

Another family member was ATC, and so holiday dinners could be interesting.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#78

Post by kiratp »

Hansenq wrote: post #29

There's a follow up video to the one linked in the story that provides a lot more context missing in this piece. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zHxdn8oz20 Basically, SFO normally does VFR parallel approaches at night. Approach sequences these approaches miles beforehand, so there can be a chain of 10-20 aircraft all sequenced to land before responsibility is even transferred to SFO's tower. The incident happened du…

The FAA themselves recommend that foreign pilots do not use visual approaches at SFO.

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/faa-wants-foreign-...

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#79

Post by FireBeyond »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #6
jtagen wrote: post #3

I wonder if it was an option to say "okay", continue circling, then declare a fuel emergency and land. Seems like ATC was being a dick here. Not sure: 1) How long this would take 2) If this actually endangers anyone/anything

Seems like ATC has dozens of airplanes to route and cannot give preference to those who have the strictest company policy and complain the loudest.

They can and do all the time. ATC would also have known the previous shift that this flight was late and would require it.

As for requiring it on company policy, I'm not entirely sure that our ATC policies should focus on "well, you don't need to be that safe".

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#80

Post by lxgr »

CaliforniaKarl wrote: post #56
Hansenq wrote: post #29

There's a follow up video to the one linked in the story that provides a lot more context missing in this piece. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zHxdn8oz20 Basically, SFO normally does VFR parallel approaches at night. Approach sequences these approaches miles beforehand, so there can be a chain of 10-20 aircraft all sequenced to land before responsibility is even transferred to SFO's tower. The incident happened du…

One useful part of that video is how they play clips of ATC telling flights to “join the localizer”. SFO has two published visual approaches ( https://www.airnav.com/airport/KSFO , scroll to the bottom): Both visual approaches have pilots fly to intercept their runway’s localizer, the part of the ILS equipment that provides lateral positioning, relative to the localizer’s centerline (which is generally coincident to…

I vaguely remember reading somewhere that SOIA in SFO was discontinued during the pandemic and hasn’t returned so far.
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