ATC doesn't have time to fuck around.
This whole thing is Lufthansa fault for mandating that they so special that they get an ILS approach while everybody else can do a visual approach.
Their drama, their problem.
This whole thing is Lufthansa fault for mandating that they so special that they get an ILS approach while everybody else can do a visual approach.
Their drama, their problem.
> The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has banned foreign pilots from making visual approaches to San Francisco airport runways 28 left and right.
This was in 2013. My understanding is some foreign carriers took this into company SOP.
https://www.pprune.org/fragrant-harbour/520332-faa-bans-visu...
And it looks like it was temporary due to a glide slope indicator being out of service, and was supposed to go away in late August 2013.
Sounds like atc having in fact time to fuck around was the root of the issue here
If the ILS was unavailable for some reason there should've been a relevant NOTAM, in which case the crew would've either diverted or not performed the flight.
And lastly, even among domestic airlines nighttime visual approaches are not always allowed by SOP. e.g.