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A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

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Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#381

Post by r053bud »

MBCook wrote: post #165
perihelions wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- "their pilots aren’t prepared to do the approaches everyone else is doing" Is this is a fair framing? My read of it is that Lufthansa's enforcing a minimal standard of safety—one that's higher than both other airliners' and the ATC's. They're not incapable of doing visual landings at night; rather, they have a policy banning it in non-emergency situations. It (naively) seems reasonable to me not to budge on this ki…

I think that same sentence with “allowed” swapped for “prepared” is what the GP meant. It seems very clear from the transcript that the pilots are just working with a stupid rule, not that they are incapable of actually doing it. A pilot who could only land with the help of ILS couldn’t possibly be assigned to a transcontinental flight that lands in the evening right?

A pilot who could only land with the help of ILS doesn’t get their commercial license.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#382

Post by growse »

jcalvinowens wrote: post #326
RamblingCTO wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visual landings are only disallowed at night. Get your facts straight.

>> Pilots are not going to be accustomized of visual landings in case of emergency > Visual landings are only disallowed at night I don't agree with the rest of what he said... but he actually has a valid point here. Emergencies happen at night too, and sometimes the nature of the emergency will make an instrument approach impossible.

The visual approach isn't an issue, it's the requirements to maintain visual separation. Under emergency conditions, you'd expect the separation to be handled by ATC.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#383

Post by growse »

vkou wrote: post #164
JAlexoid wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it's literally ATCs responsibility to inform the incoming aircraft of that. That's why there's a diversion airport.

The controller didn't have an ETA, the pilot was offered to hold or divert. The pilot didn't want to divert, and hoped that complaining would get them out of the hold. From a safety perspective, this all seems to have worked as intended.

The problem is that the hold is effectively indefinite in the controller's mind, and therefore not an option.

But that's not what they said on the radio.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#384

Post by jcalvinowens »

turquoisevar wrote: post #302
lsh123 wrote: post #128

1/ Visual vs instrument approach. The main difference in this case is separation requirements that ATC must provide. Specifically, under IFR rules ATC mus provide 3 miles / 500 feet altitude separation minimum. For visual approaches, the separation is responsibility of the pilots and this enables parallel runway landings at SFO with much shorter intervals (there is a version of parallel landings with instrument appro…

The article and the video embedded within leave out a lot of context. The Norcal controller was extremely unprofessional. Their behavior is a great example of the US controller attitude™ US ATC is so infamous for. No idea why this unprofessionalism is so prevalent in the US; I can only presume it has to do with being overworked and understaffed, with perhaps a pinch of god complex. This was handled by Norcal, but SFO…

> The Norcal controller was extremely unprofessional. Their behavior is a great example of the US controller attitude™ US ATC is so infamous for.

I have no idea where you're getting this from. I've personally flown hundreds of hours in Norcal, and I find the ATC controllers there to be some of the most competent and excellent professionals I've ever interacted with in my entire life. The vast majority of pilots I know feel the same way.

> 1) You cannot maintain visual separation at night based on lights only

There are multiple position lights on an aircraft, and you can perceive depth from their apparent angular distances. I've flown visual approaches at night myself, and thousands upon thousands of airplanes do this safely every night across the US.

> say things like "this conversation is over" because your ego is bruised.

Maybe it had more to do with attending to the dozens of other jets the controller was actively responsible for at the time? Do you understand how busy these frequencies can get?

> Nevertheless, the controller could've still granted ILS without much issue, it would've caused about 5 minutes of delay for the next flight.

I guess you didn't read the big response on the YT channel? They categorically refuted this idea.

> 2) The incident history in the US related to taking visuals at night supports the idea that this should not be allowed.

No, it really doesn't. Both incidents you cite were caused by fatigue, and may well have been no different during the day. There have probably been literal millions of safe nighttime visual approaches in the last decade in the US.

Maybe you've heard bad things about circling approaches at night? That those are unsafe is a much more widely held opinion among pilots, some US airlines don't allow them. But that's very different.

> 3) The FAA advised against letting international airlines take visuals at night.

The government isn't a monolithic entity, and neither is the FAA. Assuming ATC must allow the ILS because the FAA put out this PR statement is as silly as assuming the USPS must know what address to use when the IRS demands a document from you.

> 4) METAR had SCT and BKN cloud below 1500ft

Doesn't matter if the approach was clear.

> The Norcal controller was way out of line and with what passes for SOP in the US we're gonna have our own Tenerife disaster soon enough.

rolls eyes

There are definitely some legitimate ATC incidents to pick on in the last year, but this isn't one of them. This is: https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/G...

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#385

Post by jcalvinowens »

growse wrote: post #382
jcalvinowens wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Pilots are not going to be accustomized of visual landings in case of emergency > Visual landings are only disallowed at night I don't agree with the rest of what he said... but he actually has a valid point here. Emergencies happen at night too, and sometimes the nature of the emergency will make an instrument approach impossible.

The visual approach isn't an issue, it's the requirements to maintain visual separation. Under emergency conditions, you'd expect the separation to be handled by ATC.

> Under emergency conditions, you'd expect the separation to be handled by ATC.

ATC is never responsible for general traffic separation in visual meteorological conditions in the United States.

ATC is responsible for separating IFR airplanes from other IFR airplanes. When flying below 18000ft MSL in VMC, those IFR aircraft are still responsible for looking out the window to see and avoid VFR aircraft who may not be talking to ATC (and to be clear, the VFR aircraft is jointly responsible).

Just to drive this home: it is still 100% legal to fly around in a Piper Cub at 9500ft MSL with no transponder or radio in most of the country. It is legal to fly around VFR in a jet at 17500ft squawking 1200 not talking to ATC almost everywhere in the country. Primary radar coverage is going away, not getting better. You have to look out the window.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#386

Post by jcalvinowens »

bombcar wrote: post #233
jcalvinowens wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is tough for me to wrap my head around. It's pretty easy to explain: the controller took the pilot at his word, and immediately offered the fastest and safest option to get them on the ground, which was to land at Oakland. The runway thresholds at SFO and OAK are less than ten miles apart.

Exactly. ATC called his bluff and won. Note the pilot was not willing to even dare to break his company rules and do a visual, so why should ATC break theirs?

> ATC called his bluff and won.

I wouldn't put it like that. I think the pilot probably genuinely believed that diverting him would be much more of a problem for ATC than working him in, and was trying to make sure the controller understood he was going to need to divert soon.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#387

Post by jcalvinowens »

cycomanic wrote: post #268
bombcar wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. ATC called his bluff and won. Note the pilot was not willing to even dare to break his company rules and do a visual, so why should ATC break theirs?

No ILS is not an ATC rule, it's simply a way to get more flights to land (increasing airline/airport profits) and putting responsibility on the pilot (not ATC). Lufthansa has the policy exactly so that pilots do not get bullied into taking a visual approach, by ATC.

Most pilots would prefer a visual approach given the choice. I doubt this pilot actually believed it would be unsafe to fly the visual at SFO that evening: given the dozens of other jets actively doing it, that would be absurd. He was just following his company policy. If he had a real emergency that required him to land immediately, I'm almost certain he'd have flown that emergency landing visually.

I don't know for sure... but on a modern jet, I suspect he was able to contact his employer during that long hold to ask, and they told him "yes, we really want you to divert if you can't get the ILS". Either way, if there's any fault here, IMHO it's on his employer not doing their homework and putting their pilot in a no-win situation.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#388

Post by 0xBDB »

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…

Why are we thanking Reagan (sarcastically)? The mandatory retirement age for air traffic controllers is 56 and he fired them all 42 years ago. Presumably none of them were prepubescent, so they wouldn't be working today.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#389

Post by lmm »

refurb wrote: post #332
lmm wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone know why EU / Japan / Korea does not have the same issues? Because over there the job comes with a strong union and real job security?

Like the pilots of Singapore Airlines? In the words of Lee Kuan Yew… “I gave them a choice. Continue this and I will by every means at my disposal teach you and get the people of Singapore to help me teach you a lesson you won't forget. Took them 65 minutes and they decided ok it isn't worth the fight. Why? Because they know they'll lose. They know that I'm prepared to ground the airline. They know that I can get the…

Singapore is not a representative example of... anything, honestly. Certainly not of "EU / Japan / Korea" which was the original question. So I have no idea what you're getting at.

Re: A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion

#390

Post by filleduchaos »

jquery wrote: post #378
filleduchaos wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it get-there-itis for a pilot to have to remind air traffic control that they have not provided an update they are supposed to have provided? Honestly I'm a little confused by some of the sentiment around this situation. Air traffic control is a service that airlines pay for, not little gods that cannot be questioned.

"if we are not set up for base soon, we will have to declare fuel emergency and that would really ** up your sequence" - pilot That is 100% out of line. But the ATC handled it super professionally and offered them vectors to their alternate. The article suggests that ATC should've let the pilots declare a fuel emergency instead?

I...don't see how that is "100% out of line". Again I am very confused by the sentiment here - unless you are ignoring how much time the Lufthansa bird actually spent on hold (34 minutes before the statement you're quoting) and/or the regulations on (as well as the physical reality of) fuel consumption, jumping to the conclusion that the Lufthansa pilot is bluffing is very strange.

On top of that, the idea that the controller has carte blanche to "call [his] bluff" is patently absurd. So is the framing of diverting them to their alternate airport as "calling a bluff", when diverting to Oakland is exactly what the controller should have done from the beginning instead of giving them an ultimately wrong estimate and forgetting they were there.

Then again this is a board targeting the software dev industry, so I don't know why I'm surprised.

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