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A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

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Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#101

Post by thriftwy »

koyote wrote: post #89
YeBanKo wrote: post #30

Maybe the reason why Lufthansa does not allow visual approach at SFO at night, could be after the Air Canada near miss. > 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. FAA changed the rules for SFO and made visual appro…

There's also this crash that happened while ILS was broken: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214 This was ultimately pilot error but also due to the fact that the pilots were not as accustomed to doing visual landings.

Pilots are not going to be accustomized of visual landings in case of emergency, if you have a corporate policy that forbids them in controlled setting!

This one is bizzare, not only European pilots on average have less experience than US ones, but they are not allowed to gain experience by corporate policy.

(This one coming from a country where aviation is a big mess)

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#102

Post by antonjs »

kiratp wrote: post #78
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-...

If I remember correctly, this Lufthansa flight usually arrives during the day, when the company permits visual approaches, but had a delayed departure, which is what let to their policy prohibiting visual approaches and the bad timing with the huge chain of other arrivals.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#103

Post by brigade »

noxvilleza wrote: post #17
riversflow wrote: post #8

I see this as a reap what you sow moment for Lufthasa. Why should ATC at a busy airport be so accommodating? Lufthasa is the one making this hard on everyone. I used to watch both these airports fairly frequently from Oyster bay regional park, they are both super busy with flights often lining up to the horizon.

This wasn't some new policy of Lufthansa though, apparently it's their SOP for basically all airports. Outside the US, I'm not sure if visual approaches are all that common for (heavy) aircraft at night. Overall, the reason that SFO wants visual approaches is to increase rate of landing, and the reason that Lufthansa wants ILS is to increase safety -- your phrasing "Lufthasa is the one making this hard on everyone" j…

Instrument approaches are the norm in Europe, visual approaches are the norm in the US. Visual approaches can and normally do still use ILS when possible; SFO's incidents were when ILS was out of service (Asiana 214) or not engaged (Air Canada 759)

Which is why ATC obliquely asked whether Lufthansa bans visual approaches altogether, or simply requires the use of ILS. If it had been the latter, that's fully compatible with normal SFO operations.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#104

Post by kabes »

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…

Lufthansa does what the FAA recommends and SFO had air canada almost landing on the taxiway because of the visual approach not too long ago. So calling it an asshole move is turning things around.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#105

Post by antonjs »

daedalus_f wrote: post #27

Like in the youtube video's comments section, I suspect everyone on HN is going to assume that the ATC was simply being petty, and perhaps that was the case. But... We don't know what the approach into SFO looked like that night, but you can bet it was busy. VASAviation videos are often highly misleading in this regard. Most of the talk on the ATC frequency is cut (sometimes explicitly, sometimes not) leaving just th…

VASAviation has a video on this incident with commentary from a NorCal controller, showing the (large amount of) inbound traffic. [1]

[1] https://youtu.be/4zHxdn8oz20?si=6ENIvIot7Q3LSJHO

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#106

Post by mitchellh »

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…

A small nitpick: the other aircraft were doing _visual_ approaches, not VFR approaches. A visual approach is a type of instrument approach operated under IFR regulations. Practically, this has no affect on your comment. Just pointing this out in case its interesting to you or others (if you didn't know this already).

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#107

Post by throwbadubadu »

trentnelson wrote: post #96
KennyBlanken wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That’s not how ATC works. First come, first served.

No, that's also not how it should work. Airports have a certain capacity, that's why you use slot allocations at crowded ones. You can say that day was so botched that they blew the one plane in fav of all the others, but that is not how it should work, telling a plane with an allocated slot you cannot even have a realistic estimate when we will fit you in.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#109

Post by vkou »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #75
mandevil wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

> 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."

It's more like showing up two weeks late to your dinner reservation, on a Valentine's Day Friday night rush, and being upset that you don't have an accurate ETA to get seated.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#110

Post by avarun »

bilbo0s wrote: post #82
KennyBlanken wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They arrived in the area on time Huh? They arrived way outside their window. I realize they also left MUC late, but still.

This is obviously referring to the fact that they arrived on time with respect to their updated schedule post delayed departure.
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