> Lufthansa 458 heavy, just for my planning purposes and for the Final controller's planning purposes, can you maintain visual separation with the aircraft at night?
> 458 heavy, exactly that is what is not allowed [laughs]
The controller was trying to give the pilot an out by allowing him to comply with his company's procedures prohibiting visual approaches, but allowing him to make an instrument landing so long as he was capable of looking out his window to ensure that he has specific other aircraft in sight. Note that this is required for parallel landings at SFO because of the very close proximity of the runways otherwise prohibits simultaneous approaches.
The problem is that, under the FAA regulations, all aircraft operating in visual conditions (which includes a clear night) have a duty to maintain vigilance "so as to see and avoid other aircraft" regardless of whether an operation is conducted under instrument flight rules or visual flight rules. 14 C.F.R. § 91.113 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/91.113)
In essence, the Lufthansa pilot was telegraphing his refusal to even comply with the basic flight regulations that all aircraft have to comply with (regardless of instrument or visual flight rules).
The combination of (1) refusing to accept a visual approach, and (2) refusing to even abide by the minimum requirements for operation in U.S. airspace (to see and avoid other aircraft), even on an instrument approach, caused the excessive delay.
You're quoting from a section on right of way and collision avoidance. Being asked to maintain visual separation for flying in the pattern (instead of radar separation) is not the same thing as "we expect you to regularly look out the window to avoid a collision with other aircraft as a backup to ATC fucking up and collision warning not working."
They ran down the aircraft's fuel, contributed to crew fatigue, and their language and conduct on the radio was petulant, at best. This is all because US controllers use visual approaches because they can fit more planes in.
The entire system is overloaded and overworked, and the strain is showing in skyrocketing near-miss incidents.
> "we expect you to regularly look out the window to avoid a collision with other aircraft as a backup to ATC fucking up and collision warning not working."
If I’m understanding correctly, the ATC is asking the pilot if they can maintain visual separation with traffic landing on the parallel runway. The pilot says no meaning they need the added accommodation of being brought in without parallel traffic. For better or for worse, maintaining visual separation with parallel traffic is the normal course of business there…the situation wouldn’t arise because of an ATC fuckup. Furthermore, in such a scenario, the collision avoidance system is a backup to the pilot, not the other way around.
You can see an example of a parallel landing at SFO (on 28L) after sunset here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ1mUkxj0UM. I first spot the strobe of the other aircraft (eventually landing on 28R) at 4:00, and at 7:00 the aircraft are parallel and in close proximity. For comparison, here's one in full darkness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m2sR3lVotw
+1 to the above. ATC is working to get *ALL* traffic going and if one pilot doesn’t want to do what everyone else is doing then this pilot goes to the end of the line. Company procedures or not, SFO parallel arrivals require visual separation in VMC. If you don’t like it, then hold and wait till ATC can squeeze you in without someone else landing on parallel. ATC has no obligation to “special treat” someone who didn’t declare emergency and force others to wait while someone takes their time flying ILS with (high) IFR separation requirements on a CAVU (celling and visibility unlimited) day.
SFO has published ILS approaches for 28L and 28R. They have NOTAMS indicating that the ILS is available except for certain dates. ATC is 100% in the wrong for prioritizing throughput over safety. At some point their luck will run out. If ATC does not want to make ILS available then they need to communicate that explicitly and not waste everyone's time with a penalty hold.
The a comment from VASAviation that goes along with that video:
"Thanks to this Norcal Tracon controller who reached me to give his point of view of a situation he knows well, as he is a very experienced controller in the Bay Area. He knows the controllers in the video and knows procedures in good detail.
If I have missed something in the video that you are interested to know, please leave a comment. I included all relevant factors that I considered of importance and even trimming things out, it's still a 26 minute video. [CLIP]
Date was 17 October at 03:40 UTC and on. Just in case you want to inquire into it a bit deeper.
Point of the video is providing more context to the original video: ATIS, other airplanes interactions, the entire airspace view... and of course the valuable commentary of a real controller who works that one and other similar positions daily.
You can stand for the controller's or pilot's side, but please be respectful. I know the majority of the audience is not real pilots, controllers, dispatchers... so if you are, please show respect to them and exhibit your knowledge on the topic so they can understand.
My final conclusion to this is that Lufthansa (unlike Philippines) reached SFO and requested the ILS when the arrivals streams were busiest, thence receiving indefinite delay vectors. Nobody's fault. Just bad timing regarding the totality of inbounds.
The odd thesis here seems to be that the lufthansa flight has to bear the entire burden of the delay. Eventually there will be a gap when you have runway space free. Rather than shove the lufthansa flight in right away, then cause every further flight to be delayed until that gap appears, lufthansa has to wait for the gap themselves. "No visual approaches" is treated as a sort of deviance which the ATC won't allow the effects of it to cascade to anyone but lufthansa. This added context makes it clearer exactly what the OP article is criticizing: the ATC had the complete ability to let the lufthansa flight land whenever they liked, but was choosing not to, and there are certain negative effects which that choice could have.
> so long as he was capable of looking out his window to ensure that he has specific other aircraft in sight
But not just aircraft landing on the parallel runway; a visual approach means the pilot is responsible for maintaining separation from the aircraft ahead of him, correct? Presumably the requirement by Lufthansa for ILS approach at night is due to concerns about the reduced ability of the pilot to do that in the dark.
The issue is the parallel runway, not the traffic in front, which has a much larger separation. What the environment at SFO does not permit is for a pilot to be able to rely on the controller to guarantee separation from the airplane landing in parallel.
The other problem with the Lufthansa is, being a heavy, it needs to be the one staggered slightly behind the other aircraft for wake turbulence reasons.
> The issue is the parallel runway, not the traffic in front, which has a much larger separation.
Fair enough, but it's still true that doing a visual approach means the pilot is responsible for both, correct? There's no such thing as "an ILS approach where the pilot agrees to visually maintain separation from aircraft landing on the parallel runway", correct?
> What the environment at SFO does not permit is for a pilot to be able to rely on the controller to guarantee separation from the airplane landing in parallel.
So basically, if SFO were doing all ILS approaches, capacity would be cut in half because the planes would have to alternate landing on the two parallel runways instead of landing side by side?
> There's no such thing as "an ILS approach where the pilot agrees to visually maintain separation from aircraft landing on the parallel runway"
Not a cleared instrument approach, but nothing stops the pilot from following the ILS procedure with approval from ATC on such a "visual" approach.
A full ILS approach could be approved with an aircraft landing in parallel, however, if the required separation was supplied by the cooperating aircraft trailing just behind the ILS-landing aircraft.
> The following conditions apply to visual approaches being conducted simultaneously to parallel, intersecting, and converging runways, as appropriate:
> Parallel runways separated by less than 2,500 feet. Unless approved separation is provided, an aircraft must report sighting a preceding aircraft making an approach (instrument or visual) to the adjacent parallel runway. When an aircraft reports another aircraft in sight on the adjacent extended runway centerline and visual separation is applied, controllers must advise the succeeding aircraft to maintain visual separation. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/atc_html...
If the Lufthansa was not heavy (and thus not required to slightly trail the parallel aircraft), the required separation could have been supplied by the other pilot, and it would apparently comply with Lufthansa's SOP. It's somewhat counterintuitive to me that Lufthansa would prefer to trust any pilot other than its own to provide the required separation.
> nothing stops the pilot from following the ILS procedure with approval from ATC on such a "visual" approach
But that wasn't what ATC was offering the Lufthansa crew, was it? If that were what ATC was offering, I would expect to see something more explicit in the voice traffic, something like "we can grant you permission to follow the ILS approach procedure if you agree to maintain visual separation from the aircraft coming in on the parallel runway". If the Lufthansa pilot is on the hook to follow company policy requiring an ILS approach, I wouldn't expect him to hang his hat on something cryptic from ATC that could be interpreted in multiple different ways. I would expect him to need something explicit.
Yeah ... no. It's either an instrument approach or it's a visual approach. ATC trying to "give the pilot an out" is bullshit. What the pilot needed, and didn't get, was clarity without attitude. "See and avoid" is endemic to flying, but that cannot be stretched into forced acceptance of a visual approach clearance.
That’s entirely lost in translation due to language barrier. Expecting a non American to pick up on that is futile at best.
Having that said, it’s incredible that pilots forget time and time again that as PIC they are the drivers of the airplane, not ATC.
This pilot could have easily declared an emergency and be asked to be diverted to SFO and be number 1. Deal with the ramifications later. And as we saw from American in JFK who was in a rush to get home early, nothing happens.
It's not as simple as that. The pilot says he knows he can do it, and doesn't want to because it will fuck up things, big time.
It would do so for everyone. Both other crews in the air, and ATC. It would generate a huge load of work for the controllers (and that can lead to fuckups)...and end up causing numerous other flights to be delayed in landing. Flights with tired crews and fuel concerns of their own.
One aspect of aphantasia that I haven't seen mentioned yet is memory of Chinese characters / kanji.
I absolutely cannot for the life of me visualize any* of the characters I can easily read and write. However, there is a trick I can do for the ones I can write: I can trace the strokes in my head in the correct direction, order, and proportion. And I have to do it by imagining the muscle movements I would use. Although I can't visualize the result, it's the closest thing I can get to seeing anything in my mind's eye.
*Almost true; exceptions exist like 十，人，个，大. But something as easy as 车 is too complicated for me to visualize, but very easy to mentally trace.
In the accident flight, the first officer (FO) inadvertently activated the "go around" mode during landing, then, in surprise, pushed the airplane into the ground.
> According to one check airman at [FO's previous airline], the FO could explain things well in the briefing room and performed some expected tasks well in the simulator. However, when presented with something unexpected in the simulator, the FO would get extremely flustered and could not respond appropriately to the situation. She said that when the FO did not know what to do, he became extremely anxious and would start pushing a lot of buttons without thinking about what he was pushing, just to be doing something.
Another check airman at Mesa said the FO’s stick and rudder skills were weak, and he also struggled with basic flight management system tasks. This check airman described the FO’s piloting performance as among the worst he had ever seen and noted that the FO tended to have an excuse for each of his poor performances, such as blaming his simulator partner, his instructor, or the hotel. A third check airman at Mesa said that the FO had weak situational awareness, did not realize what was going on with the airplane at times, and had difficulty staying ahead of the airplane. She said the FO was completely unaware that he lacked skills, unwilling to accept feedback, and unhappy with her about his failure to upgrade to captain.
An instructor who taught cockpit procedures on the flight training devices at Air Wisconsin Airlines recalled that during one emergency procedures training scenario, the FO made abrupt control inputs that triggered the stick shaker and overspeed alerts. The instructor said that instead of staying engaged in the scenario and addressing the problem with his training partner, the FO just stopped what he was doing and turned around and looked at the instructor. The instructor found this reaction highly unusual.
Turns out Amazon didn't know about any of these failures, because here's your government in action (inaction):
Ten years ago, Section 203 of the Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010 mandated that the FAA create an electronic pilot records database (PRD), which was intended to improve the timeliness and efficiency of the PRIA records retrieval process by providing hiring operators and DAs with direct access to pilots’ FAA, NDR, and former employer records in a single database. By 2016, the FAA had not yet implemented the PRD, and Congress imposed an April 30, 2017, deadline, which the FAA also missed. Although the FAA has begun phasing in the use of the PRD, the PRD is not yet fully functional; it contains only pilots’ FAA records and is available to hiring operators for use on a voluntary basis.
She said that when the FO did not know what to do, he became extremely anxious and would start pushing a lot of buttons without thinking about what he was pushing, just to be doing something.
You'd think that the simulator would be able to detect inappropriate button pushes in a given situation, and produce a report stating that it had happened more than <some threshold> times during an exercise. That should flag the pilot for further evaluation and training...
That isn't how aircraft simulators work. They simulate the aircraft, not the exact expected behavior.
For example, if an electrical system warning presents itself the pilot might first turn off all in flight entertainment. This won't necessarily solve the problem, but the plane can fly fine without in flight entertainment.
They presumably record the behaviour of the person flying the simulator though during the simulated emergency (or any situation). What I'm suggesting is that a report is generated from recorded data to show that the pilot didn't do what was necessarily expected - turning off the in-flight entertainment is an example which might be judged an odd but innocuous action, but turning off the engines, or hammering 50 buttons in the space of a minute, or something, would indicate behaviour that is well outside of the expected parameters. That should be flagged.
If the other flight crew in the simulator at the same time can tell that the pilot was behaving erratically then the simulator reporting software should be able to tell as well.
Provide a financial benefit for those who use during peak power (to day get their home down to with AC 65F) while solar production is high, and then turn off their AC from 5-9.
I’ve heard of people charging up their powerwall at night with cheap power. (TOU plans)
And then they consume that power when electricity is normally expensive
Interesting that you picked "mow my lawn" as an example.
In California, gardeners are considered employees. The only reason most people don't have to deal with employment taxes, payroll, insurance, etc., is because they typically hire gardening companies that actually employ the workers.
Yeah - and admittedly I don't know California law at all. So it could very well be the State of California looks at this differently than other states and possibly different than the IRS, which might be throwing me (and maybe others) off.
> On or about September 25, 2018, in the District of Kansas, the defendant, for the purpose of executing the scheme described above, caused to be transmitted by means of wire communication in interstate commerce an online certification that he (1) read and understood the Kansas Board of Regents policy concerning conflicts of interest, (2) understood that any external personal professional activities in which he engaged that take time away from the University must not interfere with him meeting his faculty teaching and research responsibilities at the University, and (3) agreed to secure approval prior to engaging in any such external activities; all of which was in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343.
The indictment doesn't say whether the fraud was that (1) he didn't read or understand the conflict of interest policy (presumably not, since that would indicate this wasn't intentional); (2) he didn't understand that external activities must not interfere with his University work (same); so it must be (3) that he agreed to secure approval prior to engaging in any such activities.
So the fraud is that he agreed to secure approval, but didn't follow through.
The indictment also claims:
> Tao certified to KU that he did not labor under any conflict of interest.
But the only certification mentioned in the indictment was that he agreed to secure approval, not that he lacked any conflict of interest.
Regardless, the result of this failure to secure approval for a conflict of interest was a four count indictment for wire fraud and theft by receiving salary, plus a forfeiture request. He allegedly "embezzled, stole, and obtained by fraud" grant money that funded his University salary, by virtue of continuing to receive that salary.
Fraud requires intentional misrepresentation. "You indicated to your counterparty that you would obey the contract, when you had no intention of doing so" is what may be criminal fraud. Simply failing to perform is not fraud.
Here's a recap of the pertinent NTSB's conclusions from the last time this happened. How many will apply again this time?
“There was sufficient sight distance to afford time for either the truck driver or the car driver to have acted to prevent the crash.”
“The Tesla’s automated vehicle control system was not designed to, and did not, identify the truck crossing the car’s path or recognize the impending crash; consequently, the Autopilot system did not reduce the car’s velocity, the forward collision warning system did not provide an alert, and the automatic emergency braking did not activate.”
“If automated vehicle control systems do not automatically restrict their own operation to those conditions for which they were designed and are appropriate, the risk of driver misuse remains.”
“The Tesla driver was not attentive to the driving task, but investigators could not determine from the available evidence the reason for his inattention.”
> Every NTSB report has a "probable cause" section determining who or what was at fault. And then the FAA hands out fines and courts award additional damages largely based on that finding.
In case everyone is not aware, NTSB reports cannot be used in court to establish fault or otherwise be used as evidence when seeking compensation for damages.
"No part of a report of the Board, related to an accident or an investigation of an accident, may be admitted into evidence or used in a civil action for damages resulting from a matter mentioned in the report." 49 USC 1154(b)
In criminal cases what happens with inadmissible evidence? Like fruit of poisonous tree doctrine... what if you literally have video proof and tons of other graphic proof of a murder, you really just ignore it and let the perp go back into society?
if you have tons of proof about a murder, it's almost certain to fall under one of the exceptions to the doctrine. e.g, if law enforcement would have discovered the evidence anyway, it is not excluded.
> The Supreme Court has ruled that the 2nd amendment only prohibits the federal government from "infringing" on your right to bear arms, and not the states.
This was true only between 2008 and 2010. In 2010, the Supreme Court clarified that it was incorporated against the states by the 14th Amendment.
> Lufthansa 458 heavy, just for my planning purposes and for the Final controller's planning purposes, can you maintain visual separation with the aircraft at night?
> 458 heavy, exactly that is what is not allowed [laughs]
The controller was trying to give the pilot an out by allowing him to comply with his company's procedures prohibiting visual approaches, but allowing him to make an instrument landing so long as he was capable of looking out his window to ensure that he has specific other aircraft in sight. Note that this is required for parallel landings at SFO because of the very close proximity of the runways otherwise prohibits simultaneous approaches.
The problem is that, under the FAA regulations, all aircraft operating in visual conditions (which includes a clear night) have a duty to maintain vigilance "so as to see and avoid other aircraft" regardless of whether an operation is conducted under instrument flight rules or visual flight rules. 14 C.F.R. § 91.113 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/91.113)
In essence, the Lufthansa pilot was telegraphing his refusal to even comply with the basic flight regulations that all aircraft have to comply with (regardless of instrument or visual flight rules).
The combination of (1) refusing to accept a visual approach, and (2) refusing to even abide by the minimum requirements for operation in U.S. airspace (to see and avoid other aircraft), even on an instrument approach, caused the excessive delay.