SFO Incident

[Vsplat]

Agree Dagger.  I was in the back of a 777 that had a go around and, despite being familiar with what was happening, I still found the pitch change and acceleration  pretty dramatic. 

Especially when light, that aircraft has bags of power and the determination to use it all.

Glad you enjoyed the ride

Vs

[DEFCON]

"Questioning tower about landing/taxi lights on the runway and not immediately putting 2 and 2 together is indicative of a human brain being affected by fatigue, imo."

Good point, for two brain failures to occur at the same time in such an obvious environment,  demonstrated by Boestar's video post, is intriguing from an investigation pov, but I think it's the observation made by Blues, "Backing up what you need to see electronically is critical", that is strongly suggestive of some degree of impairment from fatigue.

 

    

[UpperDeck]

VSPLAT....I have no involvement whatsoever. I learned of the incident on Saturday.

Obviously, an investigation is underway and any and all identified issues will be addressed in the ordinary course.

One simple observation.....any attempt at explaining what is without question an unusual event must allow for the fact that there are thousands of landings on THAT runway at night in similar weather conditions that are uneventful.

Duh! When did it go from pnf to pf/ pm?

[blues deville]

19 minutes ago, UpperDeck said:

Duh! When did it go from pnf to pf/ pm?

Depending on who did your last set of SOPs it may have been at least 15+yrs. 

Fatigue has been mentioned a few times regarding this incident and from the description of the crew's possible pairing I'd have to agree. What works legally on paper quite often is nearly impossible for humans to safely operate. 

[Fido]

50 minutes ago, UpperDeck said:

When did it go from pnf to pf/ pm?

Sometime after it went from throttles to thrust levers.

[DEFCON]

Off topic, but the video show an Airbus taxiing by with the new windscreen edge paint ... very cool!

 

 

[UpperDeck]

1 hour ago, Fido said:

Sometime after it went from throttles to thrust levers.

Yeah? And you think aging is fun? Maybe I should re-focus. "Hey, guys! I know what pnf means!"

[Guest]

56 minutes ago, UpperDeck said:

Yeah? And you think aging is fun? Maybe I should re-focus. "Hey, guys! I know what pnf means!"

whats not fun about aging????  Been there, doing that, having a ball retired. 

[Trader]

Dagger - and that likely would have been a 'reduced' thrust go around since the 777 is designed to target a climb of approx. 2000'/min. Hit the TOGA a second time and the thing will climb like hell! No doubt as a passenger it is quite an event.

 

[DEFCON]

Is there any twin with high bypass ratio fans that doesn't get up an go 'if you let it'?  

 

[Vsplat]

DEFCON, it depends.

At sea level ISA, most twin turbofans are happy when spooled up, gear up, flaps at go around. 

Go into a place like MEX where landing weight is climb limited on a hot day, and it can take an excruciatingly long time after moving the thrust levers (that's throttles for you UD) to TOGA before the party truly gets started.....

Vs

[blues deville]

My current (and previous) airline SOP restrict visual approaches to daytime only. Is this not the same at AC?

[Vsplat]

Blues, does that restriction apply to charted procedures with RNAV guidance to a visual segment?

Vs

[blues deville]

33 minutes ago, Vsplat said:

Blues, does that restriction apply to charted procedures with RNAV guidance to a visual segment?

Vs

The clearance to the runway in use must include an instrument approach of some kind. ILS, RNAV, etc. 

[Vsplat]

Thanks.  Not the same policy at AC, though there are restrictions.

Vs

[Boney]

One of my callouts when landing on close parallel runways, especially in vmc conditions, is to look out the window and ensure we are tracking to the correct runway and call that fact out with my winger.

From my armchair, assuming that 28L was notamed closed and all lights turned off, I can see why taxiway C could be confused with RWY 28R, especially giving the above observation. Of course one should have the ILS on 28R up to compare that the picture matches what you are expecting. 

Good on the crew to query ATC. Fatigue may have been a factor. Will hope we get something on this so that all crews can appreciate that things can go south in a hurry, even in vmc conditions, therefore one must be vigilant. 

Maybe, when a runway is notamed closed, consideration could be given to having the lights on but with some flashing X, especially with close parallel runways. 

Cheers.   

[blues deville]

It seems they had an excess amount of lights on the ground that was causing some concern. The parallel runway ident is a good practice and an SOP in my shop. 

If fatigue was a factor I think TC needs to review flight duty times once again. 

[DEFCON]

"From my armchair, assuming that 28L was notamed closed and all lights turned off, I can see why taxiway C could be confused with RWY 28R, especially giving the above observation."

I trying to understand your comment; considering lighting, how could a pair of ATP's mistake a taxiway for the runway in night VFR conditions? For non-ATP's, the clip posted by Boestar on the previous page provides a good example of night lighting as it looks VFR. 

Fatigue has to be a major factor in this incident.

[Boney]

Being night time and possibly a long day, they may be looking for two runways when in fact there was only one due to the notam. The misidentification of taxiway C is quite understandable, hence the query to atc about traffic on what they thought was an active runway. Once it was recognized, the go around call was made. 

Long day for that crew. All's well that end's well good job all around. 

The media blew it out of proportion. 

Cheers. 

[blues deville]

1 hour ago, Boney said:

Once it was recognized, the go around call was made. 

I've only read and listened to various news reports about this incident so the information relayed to the public may be completely inaccurate.

Who are you saying made the call to go around. The flight crew or SFO tower?

[moeman]

Quote

Only 30 metres separated an Air Canada plane from a ‘catastrophic’ accident: report

http://globalnews.ca/news/3598124/air-canada-san-francisco-near-crash/?utm_source=ShawConnect&utm_medium=MostPopular&utm_campaign=2014

[Boney]

From the news report, it appears after the ac crew queried about traffic on 28R. Aircraft on the taxiway indicated that ac was going to land on taxiway C, thus atc ordered the go around. 

Hope to hear the crews version. At night, lights makes things look a lot closer than actual position. Also, when was the last time this crew flew into sfo, if ever.

Is sfo jinx especially when the airport have reduced equipment, be it no ils or closed runways, and foreign crews?

Hmmm

[UpperDeck]

Compare these "defences" with posts on this forum after Harrison Ford over-flew AA heading for taxiway to land.

No one said it was easy. In fact, it is urged that piloting a commercial airliner is a very demanding and exact occupation focussed on landing and takeoff.

We know in this instance that the crew queried " lights on the runway" and were assured the runway was clear. Regardless of all else, at that moment the pilot ought to have recognized he/she was not seeing what should be seen. "Why" is irrelevant until later review.

Too much time passed between the caution sounded by pilots on the taxiway; the direction by ATC; and, initiation of the " go round".

30 metres is a fact.

[Vsplat]

30 metres is being cited, source still unknown, but let's assume for the moment it's correct.  For argument's sake, let's do the same for the quarter mile number that is floating around,  although I am unclear if that is the point the tower called go around or the point at which minimum altitude was reached.  The answer would make quite a difference.

One has to be very careful when numbers start getting passed around.  It's too easy to create a context that is not accurate and go from there.  I read this morning, someone saying 'these guys really intended to land on that taxiway' based on the number and the distance down the taxiway.  He started with two numbers, reference above assumption, and added an unfounded opinion about the crew's intent. That package starts to make the round, already skewed. Listeners will assign the same weight to the facts and the new opinion. 

So here's the thing about those numbers:   The minimum height during a go around is not the point at which the crew aborts the approach.  Once the decision to go around is made, the aircraft will fly a predictable "U" shaped profile, including a short phase of continued descent.

For engines of the type used by the Airbus, the lag between selecting TOGA thrust and engine response can be 8 seconds.  During that time, assuming the aircraft was on or close to their approach speed, there would be insufficient energy to commence a climb, so the aircraft continues to descend during spoolup, despite the pitch change, as they are still in a very high drag condition.  Once the engines are developing power and the aircraft gets a positive rate of climb , the process of gear retraction increases total drag for up to 18 seconds for this aircraft type, which can translate to a lot of track distance at approach speed.  The aircraft is not descending during this phase, but it can really flatten the profile.

All that to say, the aircraft may well have gotten as close as cited, but if it was already at go around thrust and in the go around attitude, the risk of a collision would be vastly lower.  I can easily believe a profile where go around was called at or before the 'threshold' of the taxiway but the aircraft did not actually start climibing away for another quarter mile.

With disclaimers that all of the above is just my opinion, trying not to distort or add to what is actually known about this flight.

Vs

[blues deville]

Nothing new here but I was curious if the night time tower controller was handling more than one duty at the time of this incident. It sounds like he was. An additional comment about the number of departures waiting on "C" taxiway might have given this AC crew a better idea of what they were seeing. Every incident or accident is never one thing. Always a chain of events.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Report-Air-Canada-flight-came-100-feet-from-11287266.php