A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion
onemileatatime.com
onemileatatime.com
Basically, SFO normally does VFR parallel approaches at night. Approach sequences these approaches miles beforehand, so there can be a chain of 10-20 aircraft all sequenced to land before responsibility is even transferred to SFO's tower. The incident happened during a particularly busy landing time at SFO, so there was indeed a massive chain of aircraft coming in to land.
Lufthansa was the only aircraft asking for ILS. Because ILS needs greater separation, that would require breaking the chain of approaches, sequencing a single ILS approach, then resuming. The chain of landings already sequenced takes priority, so Lufthansa would have to wait 30+ minutes for a gap to appear. By the time that gap appeared, Lufthansa had just decided to divert to Oakland. If Lufthansa had arrived a bit earlier or a bit later, they would have been sequenced just fine.
ATC could have been a bit more accommodating in rerouting their divert to SFO as soon as the a gap appeared, but Lufthansa was also the only airline requesting ILS, and they're already dealing with sequencing 20+ aircraft during a busy time. It's not clear who's in the wrong here; just an unintended consequence from many well-intentioned decisions.
They have a controller shortage that they are not doing enough to fix, and they have a troublesome airport with limited capacity to accommodate traffic, that they are being too bureaucratic about fixing. The controllers at SFO have used a number of tools to address the handicap, but the FAA recently put a lid on that by forbidding side-by-side IFR/VFR approaches while also failing to authorize custom precision landing procedures like SOIA.
The request for ILS is entirely reasonable in this context, and the decision to hold the flight out of the sequence is also reasonable in the context, but to hold the flight with no updates for half an hour is not reasonable and to require it to divert is not reasonable either. The FAA should be held responsible for planning things better than this.
Is this is a fair framing? My read of it is that Lufthansa's enforcing a minimal standard of safety—one that's higher than both other airliners' and the ATC's. They're not incapable of doing visual landings at night; rather, they have a policy banning it in non-emergency situations. It (naively) seems reasonable to me not to budge on this kind of thing. (Unless the inflexibility creates new forms of safety issues, in which case I have no idea).
Also, I'm mindful there was a recent near-disaster at SFO with exactly the issue this Lufthansa policy mitigates: a non-ILS landing attempt at night, which attempted the wrong runway due to confusion over visual markers,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Canada_Flight_759
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14741605 ("SFO near miss might have triggered ‘greatest aviation disaster in history’", 414 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18071966 ("Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO", 127 comments)
I'm not aware of any other busy airport in the US that has the same parallel runway situation SFO has, with two parallel runways only 750 feet apart both doing landings. Plenty of other large US airports have parallel runways, but they're further apart and they're staggered between landings and takeoffs.
The ATC situation in the U.S. is dire. It would be insane for an airline to reduce their safety standards especially in the U.S. right now.
It's also not like SFO doesn't have other LH flights arriving who all have the exact same rules, so it could've hardly come as a surprise.
Finally, the pilot was in some ways quite considerate. He could have just waited and declared a fuel emergency that would have really screwed things up for ATC.
I am usually the first to point out the cost of safety measures. But the increasing number of near-misses in the US suggests that it’s maybe not the time to brush off the risk.
If there are 200 airlines landing at SFO, you surely cannot expect ATC to make exceptions and argue about this or that. We need upfront, transparent and written procedures and policies.
Luthansa should notify SFO of their requirements before departing. SFO would have the right to reject their "safety" policy. And we wouldn't have this sticky situation.
It seems very clear from the transcript that the pilots are just working with a stupid rule, not that they are incapable of actually doing it.
A pilot who could only land with the help of ILS couldn’t possibly be assigned to a transcontinental flight that lands in the evening right?
Many pilots do this, and you don’t need a special ILS clearance or its corresponding separation to do so.
If nobody obeys the speed limit and it is in fact safer to exceed the speed limit, why do we have speed limits? Why does the government make it illegal to do the safest thing? And why does the public put up with it? Why is there no MADD-like organization protesting the insane government policies that put everybody at risk?
I don't have any data to show that 65 is safer than 75, or to show that 75 is safer than 65. I don't know if speed limits are based on any real safety data. But I'm pretty sure that your rationalization is not. This is my little (misguided) campaign to combat that argument. Even if 95% of the population embrace it as a plausible excuse for breaking rules and to malign rule-keepers.
Asking for an airport to break its arrival sequence because your airline has a different policy than the airport is bonkers.
It's an admirable thing when somebody has to go out of their way and go through some contortions to make critical mistakes.
Flow Control is also part of the problem: they knew that aircraft was en route many hours before, they should have sequenced the airplane correctly. But this is also a result of staffing and priorities at the FAA. Buttigeg is essentially incompetent. A small town mayor of debatable accomplishment in even getting road potholes repaired being elevated to lead the U.S. Dept of Transportation was mind-blowing. If he deserved any cabinet role, HUD would have been the closest fit, but we all know that all presidents have a tendency to appoint people as political favors rather than subject-matter excellence.
Ask controllers and pilots who have been in this business for more than a few years and the giant belly-flop of the FAA is profound. Controllers are far less experienced and greatly overworked than they were pre-2020.
And interestingly, the FAA does not follow ICAO rules for visual approaches — the international standard requires consent of both the pilot and ATC — it’s not something that ATC initiates unilaterally. For those interested, here is a helpful document on the consequences of the FAA/ICAO differences: https://ops.group/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/21atsbl04-...
And here is an article that is significantly more informed on this incident than some frequent flyer blog written by backseaters rather than aviation professionals:
Don't think they intended to arrive at the busiest time
...nor to the airport
There's an ATC shortage, but so what? There's an even larger shortage of safety which needs to be addressed, and FAA are doing nothing at all.
The current budget is $18.6ish.
We make a big deal out of interview process in Software engineering. But when it comes to critical life/death situation jobs, we don't.
*citation needed
From what I've read last week [0], the main problem is that there's not enough (qualified) candidates being hired, and current ATC employees are routinely working 6d x 10h weeks.
Stressed & overworked employees doesn't seem like a great solution to critical life/death situation either.
Certainly, the FAA is a contributing factor through wages and working conditions leading to controller shortages, but airlines can also do more to better accommodate pilots.
This is a system headed to failure, with those responsible not making responsible choices and who won’t be held accountable when failure occurs (hundreds of passenger air transport deaths).
There aren’t enough controllers (possibly budget). The ones who are are horribly overworked and it’s an ultra-high stress job.
Between that and pay they can’t recruit more to ease the burden. But the existing ones are burning out, making things worse.
Maybe better equipment could lessen the load, but that’s big money too.
Is there a simple rule change that can fix this other than limiting the number of flights? I doubt it.
(1) hire enough people to perform the ops
(2) hire enough people to update and modernize the policy
Any other solution that doesn't emphasize building up the human capital is easy to argue against, IMO. You simply cannot draw from an empty well, and you really really don't want text GPTs attempting to land you no matter how well-intentioned the fine-tuning.
What is troublesome about SFO? I’m not a pilot (or in any way connected to flying except as a passenger) so airports are basically a black box to me.
"SFO operates on two sets of parallel runways. On fair weather days, SFO can accommodate approximately 60 arrivals per hour. During periods of low visibility, current FAA safety regulations allow aircraft to arrive side-by-side only if runways are at least 4,300 feet apart."
https://www.flysfo.com/about/airport-operations/policies-reg....
SFO has two pairs of parallel runways and the pairs are very close together, with the runways in the 28L/28R pair only 750 feet apart. That's really close for an A350 with a giant 200ft wingspan and the noise abatement prevents the use of a standard step down approach where the pilots have much better visibility.
But yeah it all goes out the window in poor weather.
The volume of flights and their chaining flights wouldn’t seem to change in that case would it?
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/faa-wants-foreign-...
In 2013, temporarily:
> They also can use an instrument system called a glide slope indicator, although that has been out of service in San Francisco since June 1 because of ongoing runway improvements.
> The FAA said all foreign carriers should continue to use alternate instrument approaches until the glide slopes return to service in late August.
* https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/faa-tells-foreign-pilo...
SFO has two published visual approaches (https://www.airnav.com/airport/KSFO, scroll to the bottom): Both visual approaches have pilots fly to intercept their runway’s localizer, the part of the ILS equipment that provides lateral positioning, relative to the localizer’s centerline (which is generally coincident to the corresponding runway’s centerline).
So, by flying the published visual approach and remaining “on the localizer”, you have separation from the planes on the parallel runway. What’s missing is careful monitoring and separation, and that’s what Lufthansa wanted.
It’s worth noting that SFO does have a Simultaneous Offser Instrument Approach procedure: See https://www.tc.faa.gov/its/worldpac/techrpt/afs420-84-1.pdf (detail) or https://www.flysfo.com/sites/default/files/PRM_SOIA_version_... (summary). But that procedure requires, among other things, additional controllers handling approach and monitoring. SFO might not have the spare controllers right now.
They arrived in the area on time, and controllers had not allocated it a spot, which is why the pilot sounds a bit peeved when told there isn't a spot. When he asks for one and they tell him that they can't give an estimate, that's the second strike.
Strike three was telling him to fuck off ("what's your alternate, sir?")
Controllers pulled a power play to bully him for wanting an ILS approach that reduces airport traffic capacity (larger separation distances) and in the process created a risk compounding another risk (a fatigued long-distance flight crew.) This is how crashes happen. All because the airport and airlines want to shove more flights through the airport to make more money.
The sad thing is that they'll get away with it because we have a massive shortage of controllers right now (because they're underpaid and overworked. Thanks, Reagan.)
The flow timing rate used for approaches to SFO during visual conditions is based on visual approaches, so this particular aircraft didn't fall into the expectations used for that planning mechanism. Even then it's not a forward looking plan, just a rate limit on arrivals that causes departure clearances to be delayed. I'm not even sure if it works for international flights.
I suspect the controller assumed this flight would use visual separation, like everyone else, when it entered the landing queue; and the pilot expected to use ILS, like everywhere else given the conditions, when it entered the landing queue. The difference in expectations became apparent only when clearance was given, at which point there's not enough flexibility to accommodate an ILS landing, and it's hard to guess when there will be a place to slot it in. Diverting to Oakland and repositioning later is a reasonable, if not optimal outcome.
My guess is, if either side had mentioned their expectations when the flight entered approach control, and it had been cleared up then, it would have been quite possible to get an ILS landing on the first go round. (ATIS recordings did say simultaneous visual approaches)
Yes. Yes they are
Now granted there is usually a second planner controller that does not talk to traffic but is responsible for looking ahead, perhaps that was affected by the shortage
So just being in the system hours beforehand doesn’t really mean much. ATC don’t plan ahead based on what’s in the system, per se.
ATC's job is to safely and efficiently route the traffic. Different traffic may have different needs, and if unexpected needs arise, ATC has broad discretion on whether or how to accommodate them. But being the first in line, or anywhere else in line, doesn't mean much if you're holding up other traffic - as demonstrated in this incident!
Calvin knew it: https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1988/05/15
Is it really just a matter of taking off and hoping for the best, or did somebody in the chain of granting a take-off clearance miss something?
To be clear, President Regan fired all striking air traffic controllers in 1981. The same Wiki article says: <<The FAA had initially claimed that staffing levels would be restored within two years; however, it took closer to 10 years before the overall staffing levels returned to normal.>>
So that means, FAA had enough controllers by 1991. What does that incident have to do with today's shortage? Nothing.
Deeper: I tried to Google why is there a shortage of air traffic controllers in the United States. The root cause appears unclear to me. I found this article[1], that says: <<Secretary Buttigieg did have some promising news right after Labor Day, when he announced that 1,500 air traffic controllers had been hired this year after an aggressive recruiting campaign and a raise in starting salary to $127,000 a year.>>
That is a huge salary in the United States. I'm surprised this is not attracting more qualified candidates. This tells me that this requirements to become an FAA-certified air traffic controller are incredibly strict. Does anyone know why EU / Japan / Korea does not have the same issues? (All highly-advanced, wealthy nations with lots of air travel.)
[1] https://www.afar.com/magazine/air-traffic-controller-shortag...
Because over there the job comes with a strong union and real job security?
Huh?
They arrived way outside their window. I realize they also left MUC late, but still.
Edit: sounds like visual approach means ATC do not have responsibility for separation. I thought the entire point of IFR (which – according to you – visual approach falls under) was that ATC is responsible for separation!
As for not being able to give an accurate estimate, that is not for the on-the-radio approach controller to calculate, given their view of the airspace. The video posted by parent shows how long the inbound flows were (at least on the east side); approach wouldn’t have seen that.
The coordination necessary to get an accurate estimate should’ve involved managers, which might be affected by the current shortage (see https://www.npr.org/2023/11/09/1211838624/air-traffic-contro...).
In that case they should not have given an estimate in the first place if it's just made up
Attention should be given not just to what was said, but how it was said. It is obvious the controller was frustrated. It conveys the impression that at least part of his decision-making was influenced by spite and not good intentions.
No, they’d move things around a bit. SFO decided that this plane wasn’t going to land there as soon as they asked for ILS, instead of doing their job and making a gap.
You would be surprised, but if it is a busy time, they will not be put in the sequence right away and will be put at the back of the line, which will take as long as it is going to take.
If you do a go around, you will be passed to APP which will decide what to do with you.
I think Lufthansa was in the wrong here: - they knew SFO does visual parallel landings, and ILS is provided if able and it does not interrupt the flow of planes - pilots attitude was not very professional and they started on the wrong foot with "you told us 10 minutes that ended 4 minutes ago" - then they told ATC they're gonna fuck up their sequence - then they started complaining again that why is everyone sequenced before them even though ATC told them that they will be cleared once there's a hole in the arrivals sequence long enough to accommodate an ILS landing, and the new estimate was 15-20min more
It is a requirement for pilots to know how an airport operates and what to expect when they get there or depart.
I guess in the end Lufthansa needs to send pilots with better manners to SFO and put more fuel in their airplanes in case they need to wait for a gap in the arrival sequence to accommodate ILS.
I went to check flightradar but I can see right now they are landing planes in the opposite configuration (approaching from the northeast instead of the south east), I guess because of wind conditions (see Operational Flow, https://www.flysfo.com/about/community-noise/noise-office/fl...).
Another important detail: they did this because it was company policy, not because it's what the pilots wanted. The pilots would have been more than happy to do a visual approach.
IMHO the blame lies with the Lufthansa corporate office.
(And FWIW, I am a private pilot.)
For all the people who believe that the policy is the safest and safety comes first, that's a fine opinion, but if other people don't agree to that tradeoff (absolute safety versus demands on a crowded airport timeslot) you have to accept that, you can't impose your opinion about safety on everybody else's schedule.
I can also see that the air traffic controller might have messed up. Perhaps they intended to squeeze Lufthansa in when they told them to wait, and maybe they forgot and didn't, and then when pressed they got irritated, that's how overworked people typically would react; but still it was their call.
Perhaps this flight is never late so they never encountered this situation before. We can't expect everything to go smoothly all the time, so we don't necessarily need policy changes because of what happened, simply adjust what expectations we should have. And if Lufthansa expects future conflicts, now is the time to work it out with the appropriate parties (i.e. not the whole internet)
2/ The approach sequence is established long long long before arrival to the airport. The ATC controllers (approach and center) coordinate arrivals and create sequencing hundreds of miles from a large airport like SFO. The last minute Lufthansa request for an instrument approach would have forced dozens of planes to go into hold or fly vectors which creates a lot of work for everyone.
3/ SFO tower is NOT responsible for approaches and was not dealing with holding Lufthansa. This is responsibility of NorCal approach
4/ My personal take is that Lufthansa should have advised ATC that they need instrument approach much earlier (as soon as they got ATIS which would be 50-100 miles from airport). That would have enabled ATC to create a gap for them. Last minute request is a surprise nobody needs. The Lufthansa attitude afterwards is unacceptable. They were asking for preferential treatment (get us in and screw a couple dozen of other airplanes). They also should have communicated to ATC that they have 30 mins of fuel for hold and that would informed NorCal about time limits they are working with. Lastly, threatening ATC with a fuel emergency.... not nice, not nice at all. From my personal experience with ATC is that they are very accommodating but they don't like surprises. Tell them what you want early and controllers usually find ways to make it work by the time you get there. Have a last minute request? If ATC is not busy they will help you. If ATC is busy -- go to the back of the line. Which is exactly what happened here.
But yeah, from that point on ATC did seem very professional to me.
The Norcal controller was extremely unprofessional. Their behavior is a great example of the US controller attitude™ US ATC is so infamous for. No idea why this unprofessionalism is so prevalent in the US; I can only presume it has to do with being overworked and understaffed, with perhaps a pinch of god complex.
This was handled by Norcal, but SFO has an infamous controller whose poor behavior can be found all over the internet and the nearby smaller SQL controller who thought he was enough of a hot shit that he could lecture a designated examiner after the latter stepped in when the controller was acting like an unprofessional asshole on the radio.
A lot of this asshole behavior is targeted at international pilots, but enough of it is targeted at US pilots that I know of pilots who throw retirement parties for certain asshole controllers without inviting the retiree.
Anyways, let's focus on this particular incident.
For starters, SFO is a huge mess in every sense of the word. The design of the airport is just plain stupid, primarily the distance between the parallel runways that cause severe limitations when the weather isn't perfect.
Then there's the matter that SFO is just not suitable for the amount of traffic it gets, coupled with overworked controllers who rather kick the responsibility over to the pilots, leading to the visual approach and visual seperation preference by SFO.
Secondly, the notion that this is something new and novel that SFO has never heard of and can't do, or as the article puts it: "when all other planes are landing just fine", is just BS.
This flight from Munich comes in every night at SFO with the same IMC flight plan and the same path, so SFO/Norcal should be familiar with this, especially since it's their home base and Lufthansa is a regular customer.
Not only that, but many European airlines have the same regulations on visual separation at night as do other international airlines. The reason this is SOP with so many airlines is for a couple of reasons.
1) You cannot maintain visual separation at night based on lights only, there is no depth perception, and by the time you realize something's fucked, you're too late. TCAS isn't accurate enough for aircraft separation and explicitly states this in the manual.
2) The incident history in the US related to taking visuals at night supports the idea that this should not be allowed. The FDX170 incident in Tulsa comes to mind, or the ACA759 incident that nearly clipped a tail at SFO, no less.
3) The FAA advised against letting international airlines take visuals at night.
4) METAR had SCT and BKN cloud below 1500ft
On top of all that, PAL104 had received ILS just moments before without even asking for it (because it was in their flight plan).
So there's no need to act like this is some kind of extremely weird thing that blindsighted Norcal/SFO.
Thirdly, ultimately, the captain makes the determination of what they need, and the controller is supposed to provide that to the best of their ability. Had the controller taken the flight plan into account and had their experience with Lufthansa's daily flights, then none of this would've happened, and nobody would've had to be delayed. Nevertheless, the controller could've still granted ILS without much issue, it would've caused about 5 minutes of delay for the next flight.
That said, it's also not unreasonable to delay Lufthansa if the controller doesn't want to go through that effort. That's the only reasonable thing the controller did.
What isn't reasonable is to hold Lufthansa for 30 minutes without any information or contact, then tack on another 10 minutes two more times.
And what especially isn't reasonable is to force them to divert to Oakland and say things like "this conversation is over" because your ego is bruised.
The Norcal controller was way out of line and with what passes for SOP in the US we're gonna have our own Tenerife disaster soon enough.
> What isn't reasonable is to hold Lufthansa for 30 minutes without any information or contact, then tack on another 10 minutes two more times.
Maybe because they had no available slots so nothing new to share with LH?
> And what especially isn't reasonable is to force them to divert to Oakland and say things like "this conversation is over" because your ego is bruised.
Well, LH threatened the controller with declaring a fuel emergency that would fuck up their sequence. I think the controller responded in kind.
> The NorCal controller was way out of line and with what passes for SOP in the US we're gonna have our own Tenerife disaster soon enough.
Somehow I don't think controllers care very much for company policies that they see as impeding their operations. It's not the first controller to do this to a plane if the captain objects to the instructions received from ATC in a busy airspace.
Speaking of: > On top of all that, PAL104 had received ILS just moments before without even asking for it (because it was in their flight plan).
Do you have PAL104 FP from that night? Because the longer video from VASAviation shows that PAL104 got an ILS clearance because there was a gap in traffic long enough to accommodate them.
I have no idea where you're getting this from. I've personally flown hundreds of hours in Norcal, and I find the ATC controllers there to be some of the most competent and excellent professionals I've ever interacted with in my entire life. The vast majority of pilots I know feel the same way.
> 1) You cannot maintain visual separation at night based on lights only
There are multiple position lights on an aircraft, and you can perceive depth from their apparent angular distances. I've flown visual approaches at night myself, and thousands upon thousands of airplanes do this safely every night across the US.
> say things like "this conversation is over" because your ego is bruised.
Maybe it had more to do with attending to the dozens of other jets the controller was actively responsible for at the time? Do you understand how busy these frequencies can get?
> Nevertheless, the controller could've still granted ILS without much issue, it would've caused about 5 minutes of delay for the next flight.
I guess you didn't read the big response on the YT channel? They categorically refuted this idea.
> 2) The incident history in the US related to taking visuals at night supports the idea that this should not be allowed.
No, it really doesn't. Both incidents you cite were caused by fatigue, and may well have been no different during the day. There have probably been literal millions of safe nighttime visual approaches in the last decade in the US.
Maybe you've heard bad things about circling approaches at night? That those are unsafe is a much more widely held opinion among pilots, some US airlines don't allow them. But that's very different.
> 3) The FAA advised against letting international airlines take visuals at night.
The government isn't a monolithic entity, and neither is the FAA. Assuming ATC must allow the ILS because the FAA put out this PR statement is as silly as assuming the USPS must know what address to use when the IRS demands a document from you.
> 4) METAR had SCT and BKN cloud below 1500ft
Doesn't matter if the approach was clear.
> The Norcal controller was way out of line and with what passes for SOP in the US we're gonna have our own Tenerife disaster soon enough.
rolls eyes
There are definitely some legitimate ATC incidents to pick on in the last year, but this isn't one of them. This is: https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/G...
Can/ should be applied to so many on-the-ground situations, too.
> The NTSB determined the probable cause was the Air Canada flight crew's confusion of the runway with the parallel taxiway, with contributing causes including the crew's failure to use the instrument landing system (ILS), as well as pilot fatigue.
FAA changed the rules for SFO and made visual approaches forbidden at night "when an adjacent parallel runway is closed" [2]. Maybe Lufthansa plays it safe and requires ILS for all long haul night landings.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Canada_Flight_759
[2] https://www.flightglobal.com/faa-changes-san-francisco-landi...
This was ultimately pilot error but also due to the fact that the pilots were not as accustomed to doing visual landings.
Not because landing at SFO is particularly dangerous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214#Cra...
This one is bizzare, not only European pilots on average have less experience than US ones, but they are not allowed to gain experience by corporate policy.
(This one coming from a country where aviation is a big mess)
Can you provide more details?
> Controller: What is your divert field?
> Pilot: Oakland
> Controller: Ok you need vectors to Oakland?
> Pilot: No, my company forbids visual separation at night, what is the problem here?
> Controller: I can't have this conversation with you. You either divert to Oakland or you can continue to hold. It's up to you sir.
> Pilot: Ok you promised me 10 minutes, that ran out 4 minutes ago, so how many more minutes?
> Controller: This conversation is over.
So this controller, knowing the plane was near a fuel emergency, gave the pilots the option to either crash their plane with 240 people on board, or to divert to Oakland. This is tough for me to wrap my head around.
I don't want to blame this one controller for what is obviously a pattern of systematic failures at SFO, but I'm going to seriously consider flying into Oakland or San Jose next time if this is the attitude of the controllers there.
Of course, if it's a real emergency they can call any emergency (weather at alternate preventing them from landing there for example), but not threaten a controller to call an emergency just to get priority handling at their primary.
The controller knew that and just called it. A diversion is a major annoyance but not a safety issue.
This was communicated in this instance, and the controller maintained that to land at SFO, they would have to risk running out of fuel, since the controller refused to give a time-window for landing, or to declare an emergency.
If the pilot’s being serious, he’ll declare an emergency and then the ATC will take him seriously. Otherwise he can continue to hold or he can divert to Oakland. There’s not much point in arguing about it over the radio, so I can see why the ATC ended the conversation.
And really the pilot in command is the one in control. For the attitude that controller had he should have declared an emergency and told him what he was going to do and have him clear all airplanes around them.
Bullying attitude don’t belong in a game with 500mph (~300mph in this case) objects. If you’re going to be a bully expect others to play the game in the same manner.
I don't think it's that simple. In the AA case you refer to, the pilot was concerned about the high crosswind on the runway ATC wanted him to land on, so he declared an emergency so he could land on a safer runway. Crosswind landings are dicey at the best of times, and I suspect that if the AA pilot didn't get any repercussions it was because in that situation his action was considered a reasonable judgment call. Yes, technically it wasn't an "emergency" since nothing was wrong with the plane, but it was in the sense that the pilot did not think he could safely land on the runway ATC wanted him to land on, so it was a safety issue.
ATC was in the wrong here and the attitude displayed was neither called for nor professional.
Bad analogy. The LH pilot's reason for asking for an ILS approach was company policy; he made no claim that he was unable to make a visual landing safely because of actual conditions, only that his company wouldn't allow him to make a visual landing as a matter of policy.
> ATC was in the wrong here and the attitude displayed was neither called for nor professional.
Many other posters in this discussion have pointed out aspects of the situation that make it clear that it wasn't that simple.
Can you provide a flight number and date? I would like to learn more.
It’s also arguable that the diversion was the lesser safe course of action given his location.
At that point ATC offered vectors to the alternate. A diversion was never pushed down his throat.
Controllers had hours of notice the flight would need an ILS approach. They petulantly ignored it because ILS approaches take up more space in the pattern, which means less landings per hour, which means less profit for the airport operator.
In the EU visual separation at night is not permitted but it's routinely done in the US because airports and airlines can run more flights in and out of the airport due to closer separation distances and it also reduces controller labor.
Airlines are pushing the system to the breaking point.
Bit on the hyperbolic side implying visual approaches push the system to the breaking point.
It's not unusual for a safety measure to be labour intensive and/or reduce flow.
Controllers mostly work for the FAA. They have volume goals to meet, but they aren't accountable to airport or airline management for profit targets.
Can you explain this? Do planes have choices over where to land once in the air? If not, all the landings needed to happen, so why does delaying some by a few minutes affect the total income for the airport on that evening?
I'm just questioning how an airport's overall profit motive would affect an indiviual air traffic controller's decision making like that.
source?
Also, you can’t really use the straight–line distance between airports to figure out how much extra fuel to bring, because you never end up flying that line. For one thing, you have to approach the airport from the correct direction so that you line up with a runway and so that you’re headed into the wind. For another, you have to get down from the altitude you were holding at to ground level. Between the two you need to go not towards the airport, but towards a spot far enough away from the airport that you can fly a gentle slope down towards the runway. You might even end up flying completely around the airport while descending before actually turning in and lining up with the approach runway.
You can have mayday fuel situations where attempting to divert is more risky. But in this case they had plenty of time to prepare to divert to Oakland.
They weren't even close to a fuel emergency (about to become unable land with less than the 45 minute reserve fuel amount), considering they didn't even declare minimum fuel, which is the stage before emergency (enough to fly to your alternate and land there without going below reserve).
IMO the only mistake by the controller was giving them a 10 minute delay (which I didn't hear in the video, maybe it was skipped?) instead of telling them about an indefinite delay (which was in the video) without having a plan to actually slot them in. Bay Area airspace is incredibly crowded and you have traffic pipelined in all over the place, so it's pretty difficult for the controllers to increase separation for one flight without causing a cascading traffic jam.
> I don't want to blame this one controller for what is obviously a pattern of systematic failures at SFO, but I'm going to seriously consider flying into Oakland or San Jose next time if this is the attitude of the controllers there.
Considering NorCal Approach controls the sequencing for SFO, SJC, and OAK, I don't think that's going to do what you think it does.
There is no risk of crashing here. The pilot cannot call the controllers bluff and declare a fuel emergency to land at SFO because Oakland is so close and it would be unprofessional.
The controller doesn’t have time to explain why the previous estimate was wrong or discuss company policy.
Absolutely. ATC might have been less helpful than possible here, maybe because they had too much on their plate. In that case, if they waste further time on long discussions and get behind on their other planes, the whole carefully juggled sequence might break down, sending many planes to holding or even their alternate.
There was no risk of a crash in this circumstance, because the plane still had plenty of fuel to divert to their alternate and land before going into their final reserve.
It's pretty easy to explain: the controller took the pilot at his word, and immediately offered the fastest and safest option to get them on the ground, which was to land at Oakland. The runway thresholds at SFO and OAK are less than ten miles apart.
Note the pilot was not willing to even dare to break his company rules and do a visual, so why should ATC break theirs?
I don't know for sure... but on a modern jet, I suspect he was able to contact his employer during that long hold to ask, and they told him "yes, we really want you to divert if you can't get the ILS". Either way, if there's any fault here, IMHO it's on his employer not doing their homework and putting their pilot in a no-win situation.
I wouldn't put it like that. I think the pilot probably genuinely believed that diverting him would be much more of a problem for ATC than working him in, and was trying to make sure the controller understood he was going to need to divert soon.
Recently experienced a closed airport, needed to divert, and even with chances high that we need to circle again for a while, we only took 1 hour fuel for circling before 2nd divert (and luckily made it after 40 minutes). It was no big jet, but some bigger especially cannot even land with too much fuel.
A full blow “mayday fuel” may be declared because at that point the usable fuel on landing will be less than final reserve. Final reserve is 30mn of holding flight.
Instead, by threatening to issue an emergency, the pilot reveled his cards - he was annoyed at the delay. The controller called the bluff and told him to fuck off and wait at the back of line or land in Oakland.
In the future, Lufthansa cam call ATC before hand if they want special treatment.
HN understands this concept well. Look at any advice asking thread. People don’t tell the asker what to do.
Oh please. Fuel emergency is not when the plane falls out of the sky. It is calculated as when the airplane has just enough fuel to go to the alternate airport plus multiple landing attempts there plus navigational reserve in case you get lost on the way there. The plane was not there, but just thinking about maybe being there soon. You know what you do when your primary airport is unable to land (for any reason) you are approaching the fuel emergency line? You head to your alternate, that is what it is for. And it is not some unheard of thing, this is literally how you have to calculate how much fuel you have to put in the airplane. When you take off you have to have enough fuel to get to your primary destination, waste your time there, then head to your alternate, get a bit lost on the way, have a go around on your secondary and then still have enough juice for a second landing.
> This is tough for me to wrap my head around.
Because you are thinking “oh my, oh my, the controler was risking so many lives”. When what the controller heard is that they still had plenty of fuel to go to their alternate, so he suggested that they do so.
You know what crashes airplanes and kills people? It is not airplanes flying to their alternate. It is plan continuation bias, or in laymen terms “get-there-itis”. It is when pilots want to reach their destination so much that they make poor decisions. Such as for example delaying leaving for their alternate until it is too late.
They kept asking for “Priority” but never said “Emergency” or “Mayday” or “Pan Pan”
> Oh please. Fuel emergency is not when the plane falls out of the sky. It is calculated as when the airplane has just enough fuel to go to the alternate airport plus multiple landing attempts there plus navigational reserve in case you get lost on the way there. The plane was not there, but just thinking about maybe being there soon. You know what you do when your primary airport is unable to land (for any reason) you are approaching the fuel emergency line? You head to your alternate, that is what it is for.
Well the point was that based on the time estimates that ATC gave the pilots assumed they would be well on the ground before they get close to the fuel emergency line. The pilot could have just been a dick and waited for his slot and until he has to declare emergency (which would have caused lots of trouble for at), instead he asked.
> You know what crashes airplanes and kills people? It is not airplanes flying to their alternate. It is plan continuation bias, or in laymen terms “get-there-itis”. It is when pilots want to reach their destination so much that they make poor decisions. Such as for example delaying leaving for their alternate until it is too late.
You know what also crashes airplanes, ATC, airports and airlines prioritising profits over safety (like it was the case here).
It happens. Sometimes ATC miscalculates this way. Sometimes a runway snows in suddenly. Sometimes there is a security incident. It doesn’t really matter why you need to land at your alternate, but when things don’t work out with your primary desination you go to your alternate.
Once everyone is safely on the ground, and the wheels stopped rolling we can ask if there could have been something ATC could have done better under the given constraint. Maybe the answer will be yes, this or that could have been done better to get the airplane on the ground at the right place. Or maybe the answer is no, simply there were too many other airplanes landing to do what the Lufthansa was asking for.
> The pilot could have just been a dick and waited for his slot and until he has to declare emergency.
Could have. And in the following investigation they would have been asked why have they not diverted.
> airports and airlines prioritising profits over safety (like it was the case here)
This was not a safety incident. This was an inconvinience incident.
Maybe there are systemic issues to be fixed here, but the plane was two hours late and wanted special privileges during the busiest time...
It does not apply to their home base, which is Frankfurt and Munich. The pilots are familiar with these airports, traffic patterns and so on.
Lufthansa tries to schedule outbound flights so that they arrive at daytime - if possible.
I don’t know why the controller was handling the situation that way. Taking flight duration and delay into account that was uncomfortable for the crew and passengers. And a waste of fuel. Mind the necessary repositioning of the plane, they had to move it to SFO later anyway.
I think it is tough when people discuss your work in public. And I’m not involved and lack knowledge! I hope the involved people learn and improve. We are all humans and make mistakes and/or misbehave. I have a lot to improve.
This sounds reasonable to me as a safety precaution. I tried Googling, but I couldn't find anything. How do you know this information?
09:50
It is not Lufthansa specific and applies also for many other airlines.
German pilot working for Condor. Sadly there are no closed-captions in English available.
https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/47652
In Europe it is quite common for airline companies to only allow their aircrews visual approaches at their home bases (e.g. Amsterdam for KLM) or, in case the company uses several hubs, on those hubs.
I anssume access to the individual company procedures isn’t possible.
ATC is supposed to accommodate to the best of their ability. Accommodating here could have been just waiting for a natural gap (which is what I think happened), but I think ATC should have just called Oakland center immediately and had a gap created for 10-20 minutes in the future. It is not like they were the only aircraft on the ILS approach that evening... Though, as I am not a norcal controller, maybe that is against policy.
Lufthansa’s rules shouldn’t have been a surprise to anybody here. The route isn’t new and operates on the edge of daylight much of the year.
And IIRC, the FAA actually recommends foreign airlines adopt visual approach procedures at SFO, so … how does that make Lufthansa the assholes?
In 2013, temporarily:
> They also can use an instrument system called a glide slope indicator, although that has been out of service in San Francisco since June 1 because of ongoing runway improvements.
> The FAA said all foreign carriers should continue to use alternate instrument approaches until the glide slopes return to service in late August.
* https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/faa-tells-foreign-pilo...
I am not 100% sure about the following but I think ATC instructions trumps company rules any day.
It's like calling a year in advance for a dinner reservation and showing up and having to wait 45 minutes for your table "because it's a really busy night."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_052 (1990)
https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-words-not-spoken-the...
There was a similar fact pattern to the OP: the pilots relied on time estimates from ATC which turned out to be inaccurate,
- "Due to the air traffic controllers giving ultimately untrue delay estimations the flight became critically low on fuel."
A family member was a commercial airline pilot for many decades, and had stories of having to declare an emergency when ATC direction conflicted with facts in the air. ATC would get pissed, but they're safely on the ground.
Another family member was ATC, and so holiday dinners could be interesting.
But if you declare an emergency the first thing you may do is not insist on flying the ILS separation.
What do you mean does the airport continue visual approaches on both runways even in an emergency?
IMHO that doesn't accurately represent the NTSB's conclusions. They didn't cite ATC as a cause at all, only as a secondary contributing factor (along with the weather):
>> The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the
>> probable cause of this accident was the failure of the flightcrew to
>> adequately manage the airplane's fuel load, and their failure to
>> communicate an emergency fuel situation to air traffic control
>> before fuel exhaustion occurred.
>> Contributing to the accident was the flightcrew's failure to use
>> an airline operational control dispatch system to assist them during
>> the international flight into a high-density airport in poor weather.
>> Also contributing to the accident was inadequate traffic flow
>> management by the FAA and the lack of standardized understandable
>> terminology for pilots and controllers for minimum and emergency fuel
>> states.
>> The Safety Board also determines that windshear, crew fatigue and
>> stress were factors that led to the unsuccessful completion of the
>> first approach and thus contributed to the accident.We don't know what the approach into SFO looked like that night, but you can bet it was busy. VASAviation videos are often highly misleading in this regard. Most of the talk on the ATC frequency is cut (sometimes explicitly, sometimes not) leaving just that relevant to the videos content, the time is compressed and they only plot a few of the planes involved, making the airspace look clear.
My understanding is that SFO often has two closely spaced parallel runways taking arrivals. The visual approach is preferred because then the pilots on parallel approaches keep visual separation from each other, allowing more frequent landings. An ILS approach requires more space between planes (because ATC remains responsible for separation). Hence, the Lufthansa had to wait for a gap big enough to fit that ILS approach in, or the whole stack of planes lined up for the approach would have to be juggled - how feasible that would be I don't know.
I live in West Menlo Park and often see planes overhead coming from the West or Northwest to the Bay. I didn't fully understand they may need to slot into a really long flow from the East and even the South.
The prior Philippine Airlines flight did get ILS due to a temporary gap. Lufthansa wasn't as fortunate. The guy on the video didn't think anyone was at fault based on his interpretation and the comments from his insider.
A fuel emergency would never be severe enough that they would be forced to land at SFO in this situation. In fact, if they were truly forced to land the pilots would lose their jobs because they left it way too late. Oakland was always a reasonable option.
Finally, fuel emergencies are not actually a standard call. It is a thing that is adhered to in the industry as courtesy. Unless there is a malfunction with the fuel system (which would be a mayday call) then it is mostly avoidable.
Lufthansa Requirement: Instrument landing
SFO Preference: Visual landing
Reason for Lufthansa requirement: IFR/ILS is safer than visual
Reason for SFO preference: Visual allows more planes with lower separation, leading to better throughput.
More context: Lufthansa would be using their instruments anyway, without declaring instrument flight rules landing. Declaring ILS in some generic sense is "safer", but specifically it means that the controllers cannot clear them to land in a degraded ILS environment, where perhaps some beacons are offline.
The SFO preference is not just something that the airport or the controller decided - it's also good for the airlines and the flying public. More planes land faster. The planes took off with the expectation that they would be able to land at a certain rate; otherwise they wouldn't schedule them to arrive so frequently.
The problem with "Everybody Knows" is that you really don't. The controller may assume that Lufthansa means "hey are all the beacons on?" when they say "IFR landing". Lufthansa may assume that IFR clearance means that the ILS equipment is operational, but that they can still fit into the VFR sequence.
In this case, those assumptions probably would have worked out Ok. But if "Everybody Knows" is part of your work culture and you work on life critical systems, than someone will eventually die, as you can see from the history of investigations into air transport incidents.
If you feel like someone is saying or implying "Everybody Knows" in a safety critical or life critical system, that is bad culture. Start documenting.
Just like visual VFR exists. It would make the use of ILS in these situations easiest.
Lufthansa asked for ILS, was put on hold for 20 min, then ATC promised another 10 minutes, and then 14 more min passed and this is when the pilot got frustrated.
Honestly I'm a little confused by some of the sentiment around this situation. Air traffic control is a service that airlines pay for, not little gods that cannot be questioned.
That is 100% out of line. But the ATC handled it super professionally and offered them vectors to their alternate. The article suggests that ATC should've let the pilots declare a fuel emergency instead?
Anybody have any sources on this?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214
Recently there was a separation issue with a very similar night time visual approach into SFO.
It's not like trying to squeeze two flights into close parallel runways at the same time to maximizer capacity is a very safe thing to do considering everything that could go wrong
Flight got cancelled and I got rebooked for 4 days later. Which was after my business trip so I cancelled. I'm still waiting on my refund 3 months later. Everyone I speak to is nice, polite, agrees to refund me while saying but we'll have to call you back "because policy", pretty annoying. Whatever, i'll get it eventually I'm sure
I don't particularly care for Lufthansa.
What's the point of equipping SFO with ILS if it's just going to sit idle?
“ILS” is equipment, but it’s also procedures and (increased) spacing (compared to visual separation).
But I'm not just here reppin' for Oakland – apparently, there's a lot of dysfunction at the FAA that I had no idea about. Glad I clicked.
*(well, maybe not a 12+ hr one)
Not sure: 1) How long this would take 2) If this actually endangers anyone/anything
As for requiring it on company policy, I'm not entirely sure that our ATC policies should focus on "well, you don't need to be that safe".
Giving the sense of "we'll take you in within X minutes" to the pilot is disingenuous at best. ATCs job is literally safety.
For reference the flight is usually a 6:45p arrival but was very late on the evening in question.
18:45
18h45
A quarter to seven in the evening
Having watched the planes land at SFO at night provides an additional context. There are often two long streams of planes, like a spaced necklace, coming in to land. They look far apart when flying but then you notice just have fast another one comes.
And to those who fault the traffic controller - it is on the controller if something bad happens. Politeness, even a charge of grumpiness goes out the window in the face of that responsibility. Period. IMHO.
Modern psychology, more professionals should keep updated about it.
Why should ATC at a busy airport be so accommodating? Lufthasa is the one making this hard on everyone.
I used to watch both these airports fairly frequently from Oyster bay regional park, they are both super busy with flights often lining up to the horizon.
It is literally ATC's job to facilitate the safe separation of aircraft. Note I said facilitate, not ensure, because ensuring safe separation and operation remains in the cockpit. When a pilot arrives at an airport and requests a specific approach, whether that reason is company policy or the limitations of weather, it is ATC's job to accept that request or deny it, and not to beat around the bush suggesting doing one thing and calling it another. When they give an expected time for something the pilot makes decisions in the cockpit if that new limitation will work with whatever limitations already exist. If ATC is not operating honestly then that should be viewed as what it is - a compromise of safety, and a petty unnecessary one at that. If ATC is unable to accommodate the request then it needs to be stated so explicitly and as soon as possible because lives are literally part of the equation. Air traffic can be lined up from SFO all the way back to London and that still doesn't change ATC's responsibilities one bit. ATC does not "accommodate" because that implies they exercise some arbitrary discretion and not clear binary criteria.
I'm actually surprised SFO still allows visual approaches at night after that Air Canada 759 flight nearly landed on the taxiway ~5 years ago (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGQlQFn0euI).
Which is why ATC obliquely asked whether Lufthansa bans visual approaches altogether, or simply requires the use of ILS. If it had been the latter, that's fully compatible with normal SFO operations.
The Air Canada incident happened because one of the runways at SFO was closed for maintenance, and after it happened the FAA specifically updated their regulations to require ILS when there's a possibility of runway confusion. There's no reason to think VFR landings at SFO are unsafe in normal conditions.
"No reason" seems like a very strong claim. Is that the reason Lufthansa cites for prohibiting visual separation at night? I mean it would clearly be in their interest to increase throughput as well, so they must think there's a reason. Why do you think that reason is invalid?
(The only way around this is to not have pilots as backup, and turn the whole thing over to the computers, but we're not ready or willing to take that step yet)
On top of that current CPDLC doesn't seem to be as well integrated to autopilot support other than pilots acking each command, and then I do not think Mode S is mandated (or exact enough) to provide good enough separation.
Yes because "more technology is more better" right? And forgetting about how to do things by hand (or eye) doesn't pose a risk to anyone neither
A visual approach is no more unsafe than an ILS one in good weather. Sure, ok, the caveat here is "at night" but I don't think the multiple pilots that were doing it at the time were being risky on purpose
(and people are quoting Asiana, but understand that fumbling a visual approach landing is not a thing that should be common)
That's a very nifty strawman, but that's not my claim (at least not in such a general way). In this case it's become SOP by experts in a field, specifically for safety reasons. Other experts in the field have said "well, we don't think it's necessary - there are downsides such as aircraft landing rate". These groups of experts don't disagree on the fact that it's more safe - they just disagree as to what the optimal combination of (safety, financial value) is appropriate.
It's so "justified and reasonable" that nobody else does it. Maybe it's not quite so justified or as reasonable as you think.
Apparently some Canadian carriers do also have this as a SOP.
Around the time this happened I spoke to some friends who are ATCs (in the US) who all immediately agreed it was a very reasonable request, especially given that the request was made far enough out (so it wasn't like they'd have to quickly scramble to respace the incoming planes correctly in the sequence).
Airlines are a cutthroat business and many will go for profit rather than for safety if they're allowed to. The large American airlines, for what it's worth, are actually loss leaders [1].
Seems to me that ATC need to get it together also.
Apropos of the other issues already being well debated:
1. ATCs role is to facilitate use of the airport.
2. They/the airport are being paid by Lufthansa to do so:
~$4,000 landing fee based on the OEW + 5% fuel being 340,000lb at $9.11/1000 lb.
~$800 for up to 8 hours at a gate (or a flat rate of $36,000/mo per aircraft for a frequently visiting ship).
~$1,000 for common use of terminal facilities (for airlines that don't have dedicated terminals - often with internationals, where they have the common check in area that is used by multiple airlines).
And that's not all the charges the airline gets from the airport, that's just the majority of the charges for "1 aircraft, 1 landing/departure" at SFO.
Unfortunately this airport sounds like it's seriously overcrowded and not designed well for the amount of traffic it's getting.
They are supposed to directly reflect funding of airport maintenance, thus fees decided based on how damaging the plane is to the runway etc.
It's extremely detailed and I would assume every major airport publishes them.
Also, let's just say that landing a heavy plane after midnight gets very, very expensive.
[0] https://media.flughafen-zuerich.ch/-/jssmedia/airport/portal...
Is it really so much to ask that an ILS-equipped airport... provide an ILS approach?
I'm generally on your side here; the controllers did a good job with what resources they had. But there seem to be an awful lot of oddities / operational hangups through NorCal TRACON.
You don’t get to cry wolf and cut the line because you were late and want preferential treatment. Go to Oakland as told, wait, or declare an actual emergency for emergency procedures to be run for you.
Frankly I don’t care since Delta dumped my Dad’s pension on me and my generation fuck that industry.
Other people are blaming the FAA for understaffing ATC and making it too hard to become a pilot, to the point of excluding otherwise-good would-be pilots.
I haven't before heard someone say that the FAA has been deprived of its ability to remedy these issues. Can you go into more detail on that?
Even from this article that clearly seems to think Lufthansa is in the wrong I walked away with a feeling that ATC and small town cops are one and the same.
>NorCal had a new interpretation of ILS approaches come down several months ago that tied the controllers hands with regards to ILS approaches during visual conditions... The controllers were issued guidelines that if it’s busy and an aircraft is unable to comply with the approaches advertised on the atis or maintain visual separation that its better to hold them until there is adequate space on final as it’s more unsafe to start vectoring 30/40 different aircraft to build the required hole for the 1 aircraft who’s company has a lame rule
> The controller then advises that “if that’s the case, then it will be extended delays”
In order to make instrument landing, dozens of other planes would have to be moved out of the way.
So are you saying that it's just dangerous to fly on the other airlines into SFO?
Like "You are pre-ordering of the pretzel to eat on board of the aircraft? Then klick here!".
I get the impression Germans think they're great at English and so don't actually check to see if they are or not.