U.S. Regulators Order Foreign Airlines to Use Automatic Landing at San Francisco.

[elleng]

Source: nyt/reuters

U.S. aviation regulators have mandated that foreign airlines must use automatic landing aids, instead of visual cues, when approaching San Francisco International Airport where an Asiana Airlines Boeing Co 777 crashed last month.

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that it has noticed a higher number of aborted landings, or go-arounds, by foreign carriers conducting visual approaches after last month's incident involving the South Korean carrier.

The FAA added that it was looking into an incident involving an aircraft operated by Taiwan's EVA Air on July 23, when it approached San Francisco at a lower than normal altitude.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/07/30/world/asia/30reuters-airlines-faa.html?hp

[joshcryer]

1. Yikes. Hindsite. They should've noticed this sooner.

If there are a substantial number of go-arounds / aborts and they are statistically significant compared to other airports, this should've been noticed in an audit.

[Socal31]

2. The instrument-landing components were out of service.

They were down for at least a few days, and were about to go back online before the crash.

Personally I don't believe that ANY pilot should be allowed to fly a commercial airline without the ability to land manually.

[benh57]

3. False, ILS is still down.

The ILS is scheduled out until August 11th or so. It's still down in fact. This article refers to alternate procedures from that..

(source: pprune pilot's forums

[Major Nikon]

6. Part of the ILS is still down

The localizer is up and was only scheduled to be out of service for a few hours the day of the crash. The glideslope has been and remains out of service due to construction. Pilots can still use the localizer for a non-precision approach as well as the GPS procedure for both precision and non-precision approaches.

[joshcryer]

10. Would the "localizer" haved helped the pilot that crashed?

Or was he using it or no?

[Major Nikon]

16. He was on a visual approach

So he wasn't using it. It could have helped because he still could have used the autopilot to track the localizer inbound, which would have reduced the crew workload, but the bottom line was it shouldn't have been that difficult for them to execute a visual approach.

[Major Nikon]

7. There is no automatic audit of such things

Comparing one airport with another is also of limited value because there are a number of conditions that can result in a go around and most of those are due to weather which is different at each airport.

[joshcryer]

8. It's clear that the go-arounds were significant though.

It seems that the airport itself has visual problems in general which is why this is being mandated.

Could be weather related, actually, which says to me maybe we don't have in place an audit that would look at these sorts of measures. It seems to me some group sat down, looked at the statistics, and realized something was up at this airport.

[CreekDog]

19. it wasn't weather related, that day had little wind and clear skies

[joshcryer]

21. Naw, talking about the trend.

The trend, overall, statistically, could be weather related.

[CreekDog]

22. well, if you had to rank the reasons based on what we know:

since they stated they noticed it AFTER the crash.

1) lack of Instrument Landing System this summer due to construction
2) the crash upon landing may have caused extra caution upon landing at SFO.
3) change or difference in the weather from normal, though that's hard to see at this point.

[joshcryer]

23. It sounds like they noticed a trend after they looked at the data.

They looked at the data because the crashed made them look at it.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

4. why just foreign airlines?

[awoke_in_2003]

5. I am in the flight training industry...

and can speak a bit about this. Most of our pilots start with single engine planes flying visual approaches, then work their way to instrument ratings, multi engine, and so forth and so on. This is easy to do in a country that has a lot of small private airports like we do. They get a lot of practice flying manually. In Korea this is not the case. Unless they are Air Force trained, most of their pilots have little manual flight experience, and have a big dependence on automatic systems. We do have Korean students, and our instructors have to spend a lot of time training them to really fly (autopilot isn't really flying- even I, a simulator tech, can handle autopilot flights).

[joshcryer]

9. Fascinating. That makes sense.

It would make sense that we'd have more "eyeballing" pilots than other countries due to our size and the use of private airports.

Thanks for the clarification on this point. It makes good sense.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

14. Then why not everyone?

If it's safer

[awoke_in_2003]

17. Truthfully...

I thought all airlines did autopilot landings- disengaging 200 ft or so AGL.

[Major Nikon]

20. They do both

Visual approaches are faster because pilots can turn towards the airport sooner and save fuel, so they are more common in good weather conditions. Autopilot landings are going to be more common when low clouds and low visibility is a factor.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

18. Generally

US taught pilots have no issues with non-instrument approaches. Non-instrument approach would allow for the maintenance on the ILS systems without impacting traffic capacity. SFO has 2 long runways:
http://goo.gl/maps/bQqU7

IIRC both are ILS equipped. Occasionally that system may not be on for both runways. When VFR (visiual flight rules) are in operation an ILS approach isn't required. Because the training and experience of pilots from other countries may not be comparable in all aspects to that of US trained pilots, this plan seems to address safety concerns while providing a minimal burden on ATC and flight crews.

Generally, these policies are developed following thorough system and site safety assessments.

[MADem]

24. That does seem logical (you learn something new every day on DU!). nt

[KamaAina]

11. Perhaps because they don't land at SFO that frequently?

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

12. What if they do?

[KamaAina]

13. Even JAL would only have three or four flights there a day

compared to dozens for United, and several for other domestic carriers.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

15. Sounds like a lot to me

Especially if it's the same pilots doing it every week.

Sounds like they could have even more experience than some Americans.

If it's safer, it should apply to everyone, or just to the inexperienced... This blanket ban, based on nationalism seems wrong-headed to me.