blues deville Posted September 5, 2018 Share Posted September 5, 2018 I’m not sure how you’d explain this one to your Chief Pilot. https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/fort-myers-bound-a320-lines-up-with-wrong-airport-451629/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boestar Posted September 5, 2018 Share Posted September 5, 2018 Not the first time this has happened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blues deville Posted September 5, 2018 Author Share Posted September 5, 2018 56 minutes ago, boestar said: Not the first time this has happened. Definitely not but with a glass cockpit aircraft and a moving map display it’s pretty easy to tell if you’re not where your supposed to be. Especially on a visual approach. RSW was a common route at a previous airline and 90% of the time it was perfect Florida VFR weather. Page Field is close by (4 miles) but you can easily tell its not the Regional SW airport’s 12,000’ runway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeker Posted September 5, 2018 Share Posted September 5, 2018 Not sure why you're being so accusative - they said they had the field in sight, maneuvered towards it, realized the error, did a go-around and landed at the right field. Isn't that exactly what should happen? Pushy controllers nagging guys to accept a VA leads to an early "field-in-sight" call, careful crosschecking resolves the error - I don't think these guys have anything to fear from their CP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blues deville Posted September 5, 2018 Author Share Posted September 5, 2018 According to the article, this is what they were instructed: “join the approach at “DOLPN which lies 6.6nm from runway 06 So you’re saying a 4 mile map shift is an acceptable tolerance and it was the controller’s fault? Interesting point of view. Arrivals into RSW from the north generally route inbound traffic over the gulf coast for a left base onto 06 so best viewed from the left seat. But no matter who was flying there has to be some agreement as to where you are and where you want to go. I think there was a break down in this aspect of their procedure so some explanation would certainly be required to the FAA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeker Posted September 5, 2018 Share Posted September 5, 2018 55 minutes ago, blues deville said: I think there was a break down in this aspect of their procedure so some explanation would certainly be required to the FAA. I'm not saying what they did was right but the explanation would be exactly as I said; they thought they had the airport in sight and were maneuvering toward it and when they realized the error they did a go-around and landed at the right airport. Of course having an air transport system with no errors would be ideal but a close second is a system were errors are caught and managed to a safe conclusion. There's really no story here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blues deville Posted September 5, 2018 Author Share Posted September 5, 2018 Great response Seeker. If you were assigned as my defence lawyer I’d have to say I won the lottery. However in my opinion these recent incidents of pilots not knowing exactly where they are seem to be a reoccurring event. Perhaps fatigue related or just a lack focus but errors at these critical phases of flight need to be addressed. I’m sure the FAA will investigate the details regardless of the outcome. I’m sure the Jepp chart for the ILS 06 RSW shows the location of Page Field so a thorough briefing would probably include “don’t confuse runways if we get a visual”. Accepting a visual approach dumps even more responsibility on the pilots so unless you’re absolutely of sure of your position it’s not a good idea to accept it. I think most pilots would share that same rule. Maybe not a story to you but the Page Tower controller certainly has one to tell his friends. Fortunately this one had a happy ending. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rudder Posted September 5, 2018 Share Posted September 5, 2018 What this crew did right is recognize a mistake and take immediate (and embarrassing) corrective action. That is the mark of a professional crew. What this crew did wrong is not take ALL of the necessary precautions - including use of technology - to avoid the mistake. That is not the mark of a professional crew. The story had a happy ending so they get a passing grade. However, on the 1-4 grading scale the exercise was at best a 2 and at worst a 1. Hard to pretend that is acceptable at any air carrier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ex 9A Guy Posted September 5, 2018 Share Posted September 5, 2018 Jepp plate for RSW has a note about confusing the 2 airports. Glad this had a safe outcome and that the error was trapped and mitigated but it was definitely preventable by a thorough briefing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blues deville Posted September 5, 2018 Author Share Posted September 5, 2018 Cartierville/Dorval both had 10/28 runways. A few international flights ended up at the wrong place but back in the day the runways were very similar in appearance although a little further apart than these southwest Florida airports. Fort Myers used to be much shorter but with the addition of some Euro charter carriers it was extended to its current 12,000’. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
st27 Posted September 5, 2018 Share Posted September 5, 2018 What they didn’t do was backing up what they had in sight, out the window, with what should have been displayed on their Nav display.....basic airmanship...yup, they did a go around, but what choice did they have..no excuse imo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blues deville Posted September 5, 2018 Author Share Posted September 5, 2018 2 hours ago, Ex 9A Guy said: How do you get anywhere near Page when you’ve accepted this clearance? “join the approach at “DOLPN” (which lies 6.6nm from runway 06) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vsplat Posted September 6, 2018 Share Posted September 6, 2018 Hmmm. While it is embarassing to line up on the wrong runway, worse is actually touching down on it. As much as this makes for great news and commentary, as has been noted above, IT KEEPS HAPPENING. Military, civilian, high tech, low tech. To me, it signals that, for all of the opinion as to what has taken place, we as an industry still have some work to do. I would suggest that ATC is part of the equation here. One of the things I keep noticing as our aircraft become better equipped is how strongly the flight deck is biased toward IFR, to the detriment of visual navigation. If I am at my minimum clean speed with flaps up, navigation by visual reference to the ground is just not that easy. We see a fraction of what 172 might. A glimpse of the wrong runway at the wrong time might look a lot like the right runway. While one can easily point to the moving map and ask, 'why did they not notice', it's hard to know what scale they had up or what approach. I would assume DOLPN was loaded and so visible, but on some older, limited databases, it is remarkable what ISN'T there. There's also the possibility that the crew had loaded the RNAV 06, which doesn't include DOLPN, so were caught off guard by the clearance, then saw the runway before they had things set up and thought they didn't have the time to go heads down. I'm pretty sure this will all be known shortly, will stand by to hear what the FAA/TSB comes out with. Vs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j.k. Posted September 6, 2018 Share Posted September 6, 2018 15 hours ago, blues deville said: “join the approach at “DOLPN” (which lies 6.6nm from runway 06) For the sake of accuracy, it's DME 6.6, but 4.5nm from RWY 06. I think rushed is the threat here... "Do you got it?" "Uhhhh... uhhhh, I think I see it, uhhhh yeah there it is..." "Cleared the visual" "SH!T! Better get down..." CLICK, CLICK, "FLAPS! GEAR!" "Uh... SH!T... that's not it! GO AROUND, FLAPS!"... The pressure we put on ourselves to take the visual to accommodate ATC/traffic/efficiency/time esp. in the States... "Do you have the field? Report field in sight. Do you have it? How about now?"... If it's not an airport I am very familiar with or a published visual procedure... NO THANKS. Even then I have no interest anymore in carving an airliner onto final at 1000'AGL, 3 NM final, or rushing to keep it in tight while high on profile. Maybe that's just me... but I don't need to prove anything and I don't need the aggravation... With the stable approach requirements, tdz awareness, etc... Keep it simple, give yourself space and time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blues deville Posted September 6, 2018 Author Share Posted September 6, 2018 18 minutes ago, j.k. said: For the sake of accuracy, it's DME 6.6, but 4.5nm from RWY 06. I think rushed is the threat here... "Do you got it?" "Uhhhh... uhhhh, I think I see it, uhhhh yeah there it is..." "Cleared the visual" "SH!T! Better get down..." CLICK, CLICK, "FLAPS! GEAR!" "Uh... SH!T... that's not it! GO AROUND, FLAPS!"... The pressure we put on ourselves to take the visual to accommodate ATC/traffic/efficiency/time esp. in the States... "Do you have the field? Report field in sight. Do you have it? How about now?"... If it's not an airport I am very familiar with or a published visual procedure... NO THANKS. Even then I have no interest anymore in carving an airliner onto final at 1000'AGL, 3 NM final, or rushing to keep it in tight while high on profile. Maybe that's just me... but I don't need to prove anything and I don't need the aggravation... With the stable approach requirements, tdz awareness, etc... Keep it simple, give yourself space and time. A key element of being professional pilot includes knowing what is or isn’t acceptable. I would assume they’d have the ILS 06 set up for this approach with all of the published waypoints, FAF, runway, etc loaded and displayed in front of them. From the information provided the approach clearance included a published waypoint which should have been part of the inside/outside exercise but apparently it was not or they wouldn’t have lined up for the wrong runway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j.k. Posted September 6, 2018 Share Posted September 6, 2018 Absolutely. No disagreement from me there... My post was only speculating what they were doing that led then into an unacceptable position... one guy looking outside, figuring he's lining up about where dolpn is, 4-5 mile final, while the other is in a rush to select the flap, the gear, do the landing checklist, etc. and nobody crosschecking inside... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blues deville Posted September 6, 2018 Author Share Posted September 6, 2018 1 hour ago, j.k. said: Absolutely. No disagreement from me there... My post was only speculating what they were doing that led then into an unacceptable position... one guy looking outside, figuring he's lining up about where dolpn is, 4-5 mile final, while the other is in a rush to select the flap, the gear, do the landing checklist, etc. and nobody crosschecking inside... Good point. I’m sure workload management was also an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blues deville Posted September 6, 2018 Author Share Posted September 6, 2018 FlightAware shows the A320’s path into Page Field and the correction to RSW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeker Posted September 7, 2018 Share Posted September 7, 2018 If you got that maybe you could also find the LiveATC feed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blues deville Posted September 7, 2018 Author Share Posted September 7, 2018 9 hours ago, seeker said: If you got that maybe you could also find the LiveATC feed? I think this horse is done. But feel free to post whatever you find. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEFCON Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 The flight was cleared to join the final approach path at DOLPN. They did not, which is a violation of the approach clearance and not just a mistake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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