*EDIT* It was later demonstrated that they had changed to Ground frequency after cleared to land. *Thanks for all the support and feedback on the previous analysis* Do you find any improvement with the audio quality and volume? Hoping to know your opinions here :)
Hi, nice video, as always! :-) Two incidents involving planes from Austria since yesterday: Laudamotion A320 evacuation on runway at Stansted: avherald.com/h?article=4c4d9631 Eurowings EW5939 Faro - Vienna landing today in Toulouse due to broken cockpit window.
VASAviation - Excellent video, very clear and I endorse your analysis here 100%. Time after time, there are incidents resulting from the common practice in North America to clear aircraft to land on runways which are not yet clear. As you rightly point out, this is NOT accepted practice in Europe. I have flown many times in the UK and have been cleared to continue approach, and told to expect late landing clearance. My response as a PPL is to prepare to go around immediately if clearance is not received before I reach the threshold. I have raised this before on comments to your videos, with the inevitable complaint by US pilots against criticism of their practice. But a radio should never, ever be treated as flight safety critical equipment. They go wrong too easily, they suffer interference too easily and they are incorrectly used too easily, to be suitable for that. You have a very valid point about earlier vacate instructions. Short final, flare, touchdown, rollout and vacating are all high workload flight segments and special instructions here should always be kept to a minimum. Similarly, if a crew has been cleared to land and is unaware of a radio malfunction, a visual indicator from the tower is a very unreliable backup. No, the solution here is to redress the fundamentally unsafe practice of issuing landing clearance to runways that are not clear. There have been far too many close calls documented on your channel and elsewhere for this practice to be considered acceptable. And globally, it is far from best practice (which can be said of US RT conduct in general). If you want best RT practice, visit LHR or many busy European airports with a handheld scanner.
Had they been told to switch? ... what about the emergency band radio, what frequency was that tuned to? Why didn't pilot monitoring not see the visual go around? Is an official report on this incident available anywhere? ... thank you for your analysis.
Please correct me in my ignorance. Ain't pilots supposed to change to GND only *after* effectively touching down? Definitely the 'murican way of premature landing clearance causes more incidents that can become major issues. Like when that dreamlifter landed at the wrong airport. A big role in that incident was a premature landing clearance
Thanks Victor for your analysis. I remember this incident well. There was another incident where another AC aircraft was lined up with a taxiway at SFO.
I remember that one and I understand the offending aircraft did not apply TOGA power til just before 10 feet above the vertical stabilizer of the first plane. I’ve seen the actual footage. Scary.
F Huber - First officer: Captain, I think they want us to go around, they’ve asked 5 or 6 times already. Captain: Don’t worry about it, just land it, I’m gonna be late for dinner.
What is SOP when told to call the number by control? ... I would think any innocent pilot would preserve the record, not allow it to run and overwrite.
Isla Durrant i dont think they are as innocent as you would think if they switched to ground freq before even touching the ground. that doesnt seem right
It’s already a thing at some airports but I’m not sure if it’s at SFO. They’re called runway status lights, but in particular, the ones you’re talking about are called FAROS.
Very well done, Victor! Your analysis is spot on for starters, and the Air Canada pilots are almost certainly flat-out lying about the 'radio problem'. That doesn't pass the smell test. You already covered ATC. Cheers! Love your channel!
I don't know about anyone else but when I land a plane at a controlled airport, I set the ground frequency in the second radio shortly after I'm handed off to the tower. I also keep the tower frequency in the first radio until after I have established communications with ground. Just because you're cleared to land 5 miles out doesn't mean you're still cleared all the way in.
YES, you are absolutely 100 % correct, thats what I would have done if I were the controller, get united 384 to go around and have the two waiting airplanes cross rwy 28L so then rwy 28R would have been clear for air canada to land on, but the controller did even better by having nobody go around and still cleared the runway for air canada to safely land on.
I agree that the instruction "continue approach" is better than "clear to land" if there is still traffic on the runway. Also, why change to ground frequency before landing?
Sound quality on this one is way better :) Just try not to speak as long as the video in the background is still playing, because we can't understand you if you talk while the video is running. But overall really great job! :)
Your suggestion about making full use of other exit taxiways would probably be a good idea for SFO in particular, since their parallel runways are simply too close for any of the taxiways between the runways to hold more than one aircraft, and there is no room for a central taxiway. Is this something that could be changed in the airport's SOP, and made a part of its published landing instructions, that landing clearances under certain (high-traffic) circumstances should include a specific exit? In the long-term, this could be augmented by technology, perhaps by installing a system of red lights at each runway exit to indicate any that are currently occupied, similar to how runway status lights currently indicate runways in use.
@@nitehawk86 I did that by referring to the disaster in Tenerife, where exactly the same thing happened. What are you getting at with the sentence? 🤷♂️
Just a thing that might make things a little easier is to use the space bar to pause and restart the video. Saves going to the play and pause button with your mouse.
Great Video! SFO has some serious issues: -close parallel runways -crossing runways -taxiways with little clearance -visibility concerns from the tower -lots of traffic during rush periods -large numbers of heavy-and super-aircraft -fog/smoke/weather Taxiway Tango is high-speed and diagonal, which makes it useful in some circumstances but tricky in others. This video is great background for the amusing ATC recording/transcription I sent... looking forward to your take on it!
100% in agreement that any communication received and acknowledged by the crew should be assumed that it is the last communication that a crew received and will likely execute on.
you said you were to link the video where a plane got landing clearance at the same time as a airplane has not crossed the runway yet yesterday in the description, but didn't find it.
You don’t tune the second radio to 121.5, or at least you don’t on my jet. The radios have a built in ‘guard radio’ and you select TR or TR+G. When TR+G is selected you can hear guard as well as the frequency you have selected. It can get annoying though and is a distraction on final so is often switched to plain TR. To change frequency you dial it in the standby window and then press a button to flip it with the active frequency. I’m guessing they dialed in ground to have it ready to flip when requested but accidentally pressed the button. The red light is well known for being useless. A controller friend once told me he’d never had anyone notice it when he’d used it in 15 years of working the tower.
Good comment ... makes a lot of sense. Just one question. If they accidentally/prematurely switched from tower to ground on one radio, what, in your opinion, would the second radio have been tuned to?
Ellesmere888 We use one box as primary for ATC comms and the other is a spare, often just used for listening to the ATIS (weather). You only normally have the primary radio turned up and then the non-handling pilot will turn up the second box, write down the ATIS, and then turn it down again. It’s very type specific though as more modern aircraft will just get the weather over data link.
@@marksumner2292 Thank you for your answer. Curious though ... as a marine navigation officer, we ALWAYS have a VHF radio tuned to Channel 16 (156.8 MHz), the marine equivalent to 121.5, regardless of the circumstances. Not doing so would be considered a pretty serious breach - I have never been on the bridge of a ship without verifying that this is the case. Chatter by ''amateurs'' is routinely shut down, very quickly, by ships, shore stations, etc. Is that not the case on aircraft ?
Ellesmere888 Oh yes, it was just that our radios had the ability to monitor guard built in. No matter what frequency you have selected, if someone talks on 121.5 you hear it. The only time you turn that ability off is during approach and landing when it can be distracting. If your radio doesn’t have this feature then you’d keep a second radio on 121.5, although this leaves you open to ‘finger trouble’ where you select the wrong radio and accidentally transmit on guard - this is always followed by every smug git within 200nm telling you ‘you’re on guard’ 🙄 Admittedly not as bad as pushing the PTT/PA switch the wrong way and doing the cabin announcement on the ATC frequency 😬
*So they switched to ground frequency while still flying and able to receive go-around instructions?* That sounds nuts. Is that standard practice or just a hapless Air Canada thing?
How would atc tower use that flashing red beam signaling on only one of the two aircrafts on landing approach if they both are coming in concurrently in same direction on parallel runways?
Perhaps, like VasAvi said, ATC should give separate approach and landing clearances to avoid runway incursions. ACA will have to explain in detail why they lost radio communication; it could be legit. Otherwise, they'll face some consequence? However, ATC shares responsibility for allowing a plane to partially block active runway 28R after ACA was cleared to land.
Also UAL384 could have been told to go around, that would clear 28L, let those two aircraft cross the runway and let the ACA781 land on 28R. But what I don't know if is an aircraft can cross a runway with another aircraft performing a go around just above them.
At SFO it's far easier to have a jet go around on 28R than L. They can just climb out an make a right turn over the bay and get into the regular departure sequence with the main departure runways. A plane on the left would have to climb and go straight out because it can't make a left because of the terrain, it can't turn right because that would take it over 28R. So a go around on the right would take far longer to get back into sequence..
Telling UAL384 to go around would interfere with ability of the ACA to go around if he suddenly realized he was supposed to, via non-radio means like the tower's red signal gun, which supposedly was used. Two aircraft reacting unexpectedly that close to the tarmac is a recipe for disaster. They are close enough for TKAS conflict; if TKAS engages, there is a 50% chance that UAL would be selected as the ship to descend -- aka finish landing. Precisely what we do NOT want happening! Do you want to gamble 100's of lives on a literal coin toss?
@@xheralt You are right, never said it was a better idea to make the UAL go around, I was just stating another possible scenario. Luckily, I'm not an ATC 🙂
Hehe reminded me of landing without permission in FSX where the controller would repeat “You are not cleared to land, clear the runway” a bunch of times and then finally get fed up and say “ATC services terminated”
Yeah... an AI aircraft lands and doesn't clear quick enough, they tell you to go around but you don't feel like doing another 30 minute approach so you land anyway.
Controller stuffed up. You don't stop another aircraft on the runway when there is traffic following on final. How much does a go round cost. Retrain required for controller.
Here’s my and only mine opinion. Tower procedures need a serious review, tower controller needs additional training, at minimum. Pilots, if they lied (and that is trivial to determine) MUST be sanctioned! Yes, we know they "switched to ground early". But, 121.5 was still there, red light was still there and "we had a radio problem" sounds like a bloody lie in light of later claims by the crew!
I would BET real money those Air Canada pilots were off the tower frequency, chatting with either dispatch, or, with gate assignment frequency... and instead of monitoring both frequencies, they accidentally were not monitoring tower when checking gate assignment.
This is pretty much how it works over the world: approach only clearance is given and on your MDA you finally get your landing clearance. It's common. And that's how you should do it, as ATC.
It's obviously not how you "should" do it if you are an ATC operating in the US, because it's not their procedures. It's certainly valid to debate the relative merits of the relative procedures, but an air traffic controller is obviously not going to just do it "the other way" simply because they think it's better.
While it’s a nice idea it really would be impractical to have to wait for the runway to be clear in order to issue a landing clearance. Most high density airports land aircraft by just a few miles of separation so you would be talking about sometimes only a 10-30 second window to clear an aircraft to land in this case.
VASAviation - I don’t deny it as a bad idea. But the flow times are bad enough going some airports like La Guardia or San Francisco and if they did this they would be worse.
I cant understand why they give pilots a change of frequency so close to landing.. havent they got enough to do landing a plane..? In the UK its about 8 miles out so 4 minutes.. if they dont respond they have time to recall them on the first frequency
i still think US should change the law, and atc not be able to give clear to land while another airplanes are taking of or crossing the runway, just say continue approach;
The Captain has ultimate discretion he can do what he likes but must accept responsibility. My thoughts are they were cleared to land to early, the controller staked the planes on the runway, bad controlling, I bet he learnt some real life stuff from this. Plus he likely had a laundry bill.
Was this the incident where the pilots had been operational for 15 hours straight or was that the Air Canada flight that lined up with the Taxiway had executed a last minute go around? Not an excuse by a long shot but may explain why they changed frequency early, suffering from "get-me-home-itus" where all you care about is getting home/to the hotel. 99% of the time you'll get away with it, but then the 1% an incident happens. For me ATC did an amazing job, coming up with a workable plan b so quickly when Air Canada didn't respond
It was United 384 landing on 28 L, correct? I would have had that one go around. There was too much potential for things to go wrong and if something had gone wrong we didn't need that plane piling into the mess.
What is the alleged purpose of authorizing the landing of an aircraft with the runway still occupied? Would it be only to make the ATC frequency less congested?
I agree with your suggestion that it sounds fishy to have both radios out at the same time.. I wonder if they are completely redundant systems, or if they perhaps share an antenna.. A faulty antenna could account for poor reception at a distance, but the radios working up close.. Anyone have any thoughts about that?
Why did the controller, already aware of an issue, give UAL384 clearance to land rather than instruct it go around until the traffic on the taxiway had been able to cross 28L?
The controller did a big gamble by offering landing clearance while there was an aircraft still on the runway. It is NOT nice nor clever (and even unprofessionaly) from ACA781 not to monitor the frequency BUT they had their landing clearance ! The controller could have G/A UAL2065 as they not yett had a landing clearance. OK he managed to fix it but this landing clearance with an aircraft on the runway is just a stupid thing to do (and indeed not allowed in Europe) Again Terrence and Phillip are not to blame, even if they should have been monitoring the freq.
Is it the responsibility of the pilots that if they see the runway isn’t cleared to go around anyway? Surely a pilot who sees an aircraft still somewhat occupying the runway when they’re about to land that common sense says to go around?
Good analysis BUT we wouldn't be talking about that incident if American controllers would simply use these magic words: "Air Canada 781 continue approach" Instead he's giving him the landing clearance despite the runway was not clear. But I guess something big and nasty has to happen before FAA will stick to proper phraseology which works perfectly fine all over the world even in far busier airspaces...
@@N1120A yes and then they say "cleared to land as number 4,..." because they assume that the runway will be clear once the aircraft gets to it. Even if this is no problem at all in 99% it just has to be one time (ie this incident) and everything is screwed up. It's not without reason that there is a saying in aviation: "never base on assumptions"
American controllers adhere, strictly, to a set of separation standards. If the separation is met, they will clear to land. If it isn't, they say to continue. Then, if there is an anticipated loss of separation, they either cancel approach clearance and say to continue or they tell the aircraft to go around.
@@N1120A Pilot here, not a controller. This is exactly correct. ATC can (and does) cancel an approach clearance if separation is lost or even if it's obvious that it will be lost. The tower controller in this incident assumed a radio failure (very rare) did exactly as required. I don't know about anyone else but I'd much rather be cleared a ways out (with the possibility of a cancelled clearance) than wait until the last second for clearance. Maybe it's because it's what I'm accustom to but I get nervous when I don't receive a clearance while I'm still a ways out. My first assumption is a radio failure.......
Hypothetically the pilots should be punished even if they had an excuse. Unless they didn't receive lights indicating to go around then the controller should be punished for not showing the lights. But I'm sure the pilot just ignored the controllers warnings to go around thinking he can slow down enough before the overlapping aircraft.
Would not be able to give taxiway instruction before landing because there is no way to tell where an aircraft will be on the runway until the aircraft has landedand slowed sufficiently to be able to exit the runway. Whilst a general "area" for a given aircraft type might be known, this is not a constant as runaway conditions, weight of landing aricraft, other aircraft variables (speed/braking efficiency etc), weather etc. all play a factor.
@@VASAviation I am not wrong, and your answer is a little misleading. "Plan to" is NOT saying DO IT, it is saying IF you are able to, exit at "whatever taxiway". They say "Plan to" precisely because of the reasons I have given.
Great video Vas, but as you stated only in the USA we do everything ass backwards, clearance should only be given when the aircraft clears the runway. There was so many factors that were involved here like you said the ATC could of use a different taxiway and keep traffic flowing.
KSFO's runway layout seems designed to create conflicts. Two sets of parallel runways, each set ridiculously close to each other yet authorized for simultaneous approaches, with one set crossing the other pair not far askew from the mid-point of both pairs. On a daily, routine, operational basis, this design creates a locus of congestion where the four runway intersections concentrate. This is compounded by limited space on the exit taxiways between each pair of parallel runways. I make no comment on this specific incident as I am do not know all of the details, the scale of the airplanes relative to the map are not accurate, their sizes change over the course of the video and I have no idea if their positions are accurate at any given point in the video timeline to what actually happened. Regardless of who, if any one, was at fault in this incident, KSFO's runway and taxiway layout seems unforgiving and poorly considered from a safety standpoint.
It seems that people sure are missing what is glaringly obvious to an outsider. The aircraft has two radios. One of those radios is tuned emergency frequency while in the landing pattern. failures in both radios very very highly improbable. So that means the emergency frequency was not being monitored because I don't think anybody thinks got the controller would have made those last four go around calls not on the emergency frequency as well as the main one. + as it turns out the pilot had turned to the ground frequency after getting clearance. Is this a rookie pilot this never flown in the united states before? is this something that's allowed to happen mark. So as it turns out there was nothing wrong with his radio the emergency radio wasn't being monitored. Nothing else matters. He was given go around instructions but it was his responsibility to follow NBA observer pilot should have been disciplined for not monitoring the emergency frequency they did not have to radio failures. They had no radio failures. One got turned to the wrong frequency the other one was not being monitored. Nothing else that happened on the ground mattered. He was told to go around 6 * and we all know some of those calls were made on emergency frequencies red light was being flashed at him. That the first aircraft on tango immediately responded to the call to cross 28 left without haste just what saved the day. he responded in a fraction of a second oh, yep we're moving. my only question now is what happened to the pilots and the company. by the way, excellent logical objective video, well done.
I don't think you want to tell a pilot what taxiway to use at the same time you give Landing clearance because it could affect Decisions by the pilot as to where he needs land and it could be shorter than conditions dictate and could pressure them to try to get the airplane to stop too fast to make that taxiway. I've been on a couple of Embraer flights where the pilots seemed to stand on the brakes and go to full thrust reversals making the whole aircraft shutter like crazy just to make an early turnoff. And neither flight was one where we were running behind. I've never felt anything that seemed like it put more stress on an aircraft than that. I can't imagine the amount of wear and tear that puts on an airplane over the years. I worried that these young small Airline pilots without enough hours to Graduate to a bigger Airline were acting like cowboys.
If u are not cleared to land u cannot land period. I was on short final and didnt have atc clearance. I had no choice to abort landing and get to minimum altitude and give atc shit 😆. He apologized. He was over loaded and mixed me up with a 737.
Tango can almost hold 2 airplanes of that size, the SW was only a foot or so passed the hold Bar on Taxi way tango. the ACC pilot said fuck you im not going around because I can see the runway is clear, and ATC caused the issue by stacking 2 panes on Tango and having them stop and wait mid point on a active runway to cross. High speed roll out all the way to the fucking end. note the ACC pilot faced 0 discipline !
*EDIT* It was later demonstrated that they had changed to Ground frequency after cleared to land.
*Thanks for all the support and feedback on the previous analysis*
Do you find any improvement with the audio quality and volume? Hoping to know your opinions here :)
Hi, nice video, as always! :-)
Two incidents involving planes from Austria since yesterday:
Laudamotion A320 evacuation on runway at Stansted:
avherald.com/h?article=4c4d9631
Eurowings EW5939 Faro - Vienna landing today in Toulouse due to broken cockpit window.
VASAviation - Excellent video, very clear and I endorse your analysis here 100%.
Time after time, there are incidents resulting from the common practice in North America to clear aircraft to land on runways which are not yet clear. As you rightly point out, this is NOT accepted practice in Europe. I have flown many times in the UK and have been cleared to continue approach, and told to expect late landing clearance. My response as a PPL is to prepare to go around immediately if clearance is not received before I reach the threshold.
I have raised this before on comments to your videos, with the inevitable complaint by US pilots against criticism of their practice. But a radio should never, ever be treated as flight safety critical equipment. They go wrong too easily, they suffer interference too easily and they are incorrectly used too easily, to be suitable for that.
You have a very valid point about earlier vacate instructions. Short final, flare, touchdown, rollout and vacating are all high workload flight segments and special instructions here should always be kept to a minimum.
Similarly, if a crew has been cleared to land and is unaware of a radio malfunction, a visual indicator from the tower is a very unreliable backup.
No, the solution here is to redress the fundamentally unsafe practice of issuing landing clearance to runways that are not clear. There have been far too many close calls documented on your channel and elsewhere for this practice to be considered acceptable. And globally, it is far from best practice (which can be said of US RT conduct in general). If you want best RT practice, visit LHR or many busy European airports with a handheld scanner.
But what happened to the second radio? Was the go around ever given on the second frequency?
Had they been told to switch? ... what about the emergency band radio, what frequency was that tuned to? Why didn't pilot monitoring not see the visual go around? Is an official report on this incident available anywhere? ... thank you for your analysis.
Please correct me in my ignorance. Ain't pilots supposed to change to GND only *after* effectively touching down?
Definitely the 'murican way of premature landing clearance causes more incidents that can become major issues. Like when that dreamlifter landed at the wrong airport. A big role in that incident was a premature landing clearance
Another great one. Thank you! It is great your getting this information out so others learn from others mistakes! I just love aviation!
Thank you much!!
Great video again! Thanks 👏👏
Excellent video!
Also thank you for giving the frequency change clearance.... I thought I was going to have to leave this video on after it was done 😉
Excellent explanation, Victor! Your videos get better and better with each one. Nice to see you actually getting on camera ;)
Love your videos and the new analyses.
Thank you much👍
Such an excellent video thanks! Is this a new style of you explaining things?
Thank you! I'll be reviewing some of my most watched videos and giving my opinions 😊
Great video, agree! Wish all of them could be in this format...
Excellent production once again, thank you for your time and effort in keeping us all subscribed to you it is much appreciated
My pleasure, appreciate it😊
Thanks for fixing the volume!
Good job Vasa. Lots of fun.
This was SO stressful to watch. Thank you, I'm enjoying the new format.
Thanks for watching!
I watch all the ads bud , u deserve much more sub’s and Views . Good Job
That was really interesting. Lovely clear audio too. Thanks for the analysis.
Thank you for watching!👍👍
Thanks Victor for your analysis. I remember this incident well. There was another incident where another AC aircraft was lined up with a taxiway at SFO.
Thanks Ken! I also uploaded that video and will be reviewing it. Glad nothing happened there.
I remember that one and I understand the offending aircraft did not apply TOGA power til just before 10 feet above the vertical stabilizer of the first plane. I’ve seen the actual footage. Scary.
Outstanding! Very Nice format of video....Congrats Champ! Keep always doing your analysis together with video! hug
Will do, thanks!!
Okay good review... so what happened afterwards in ensuing investigation? Or nothing?
Great video!
Excellent analysis and explanation. Thank you.
superb analysis, I study as ATC and your videos are valuable. You and Captain Joe are the best teachers !)
Thanks a lot!!! 👍
I hope they pulled the black box and checked the cockpit voice recording.
No because the pilots told the company 1 day after this happened. So the blackbox has already deleted itself. ...
F Huber - First officer: Captain, I think they want us to go around, they’ve asked 5 or 6 times already.
Captain: Don’t worry about it, just land it, I’m gonna be late for dinner.
@@Marco-wz3ff How convenient.
What is SOP when told to call the number by control? ... I would think any innocent pilot would preserve the record, not allow it to run and overwrite.
Isla Durrant i dont think they are as innocent as you would think if they switched to ground freq before even touching the ground. that doesnt seem right
Very helpful with your narration.
Glad it helped!
Great video. I like this format. Very helpful.
Thanks for watching!
Really interesting video - explains a lot of things in detail. Thank you.
Thanks for watching!
4:39 VASAviation gets blocked by ATC 😄
Hahaha!!
UA landing clearly slowed much quicker than usual and reacted well to the incident
Why not flasing red LED lights on the side of the runway to alert the incoming plane to go around?
thats actually not a bad idea similar to the semaphore signal from the tower
LED will not work with bad weather. Besides that, those LED's can be seen by multiple pilots and might cause confusion.
runway lights
No, just correct bad RT practice in the US, per VASaviation point #1.
It’s already a thing at some airports but I’m not sure if it’s at SFO. They’re called runway status lights, but in particular, the ones you’re talking about are called FAROS.
Really nice analysis! Thank you. Why wouldn't the CVR have immediately been pulled to let investigators know what was going on in the cockpit?
Me encantó. Gracias por el aporte.
¡Gracias!
Very well done, Victor! Your analysis is spot on for starters, and the Air Canada pilots are almost certainly flat-out lying about the 'radio problem'. That doesn't pass the smell test. You already covered ATC. Cheers! Love your channel!
I don't know about anyone else but when I land a plane at a controlled airport, I set the ground frequency in the second radio shortly after I'm handed off to the tower.
I also keep the tower frequency in the first radio until after I have established communications with ground.
Just because you're cleared to land 5 miles out doesn't mean you're still cleared all the way in.
RR KNL if you lose comms it does 😂
@@LC-bp9ri Correct, if you lose communication, you fly your last clearance all the way in.
ATC will ensure that your path is clear of any traffic.
Why not call United to go around and make the other planes to cross the runway? It would be easier. Or not?
united's runway was 100% clear. the issue was the runway air canada was going to land in. the southwest plane's tail was sticking out.
YES, you are absolutely 100 % correct, thats what I would have done if I were the controller, get united 384 to go around and have the two waiting airplanes cross rwy 28L so then rwy 28R would have been clear for air canada to land on, but the controller did even better by having nobody go around and still cleared the runway for air canada to safely land on.
I agree that the instruction "continue approach" is better than "clear to land" if there is still traffic on the runway. Also, why change to ground frequency before landing?
I assume they did it unintentionally.
Thank you !
Sound quality on this one is way better :) Just try not to speak as long as the video in the background is still playing, because we can't understand you if you talk while the video is running.
But overall really great job! :)
That was mainly a volume level issue but easy to fix😊
@VASAviation
Are you going to do a video about the Stansted airport with the rejected takeoff, and the emergency evacuation
Excellent excellent video 👌😎👏.
Thanks for watching!
Your suggestion about making full use of other exit taxiways would probably be a good idea for SFO in particular, since their parallel runways are simply too close for any of the taxiways between the runways to hold more than one aircraft, and there is no room for a central taxiway. Is this something that could be changed in the airport's SOP, and made a part of its published landing instructions, that landing clearances under certain (high-traffic) circumstances should include a specific exit? In the long-term, this could be augmented by technology, perhaps by installing a system of red lights at each runway exit to indicate any that are currently occupied, similar to how runway status lights currently indicate runways in use.
Greetings from Tenerife !!!
Talk about tower-aircraft miscommunication :(
@@nitehawk86 I did that by referring to the disaster in Tenerife, where exactly the same thing happened. What are you getting at with the sentence? 🤷♂️
Just a thing that might make things a little easier is to use the space bar to pause and restart the video. Saves going to the play and pause button with your mouse.
Is that really a matter?
Great Video!
SFO has some serious issues:
-close parallel runways
-crossing runways
-taxiways with little clearance
-visibility concerns from the tower
-lots of traffic during rush periods
-large numbers of heavy-and super-aircraft
-fog/smoke/weather
Taxiway Tango is high-speed and diagonal, which makes it useful in some circumstances but tricky in others.
This video is great background for the amusing ATC recording/transcription I sent... looking forward to your take on it!
It was corruption. AC was not willing to play ball. thats all
100% in agreement that any communication received and acknowledged by the crew should be assumed that it is the last communication that a crew received and will likely execute on.
When the girl gave the pilots the number, one pilot said to the other "Dude I think she likes me, she is giving me her number". LOL
Excellent presentation, Victor! Seems like SFO has logistics problems.
Thank you!
you said you were to link the video where a plane got landing clearance at the same time as a airplane has not crossed the runway yet yesterday in the description, but didn't find it.
You don’t tune the second radio to 121.5, or at least you don’t on my jet. The radios have a built in ‘guard radio’ and you select TR or TR+G.
When TR+G is selected you can hear guard as well as the frequency you have selected.
It can get annoying though and is a distraction on final so is often switched to plain TR.
To change frequency you dial it in the standby window and then press a button to flip it with the active frequency. I’m guessing they dialed in ground to have it ready to flip when requested but accidentally pressed the button.
The red light is well known for being useless. A controller friend once told me he’d never had anyone notice it when he’d used it in 15 years of working the tower.
Good comment ... makes a lot of sense.
Just one question. If they accidentally/prematurely switched from tower to ground on one radio, what, in your opinion, would the second radio have been tuned to?
Ellesmere888 We use one box as primary for ATC comms and the other is a spare, often just used for listening to the ATIS (weather). You only normally have the primary radio turned up and then the non-handling pilot will turn up the second box, write down the ATIS, and then turn it down again. It’s very type specific though as more modern aircraft will just get the weather over data link.
@@marksumner2292 Thank you for your answer.
Curious though ... as a marine navigation officer, we ALWAYS have a VHF radio tuned to Channel 16 (156.8 MHz), the marine equivalent to 121.5, regardless of the circumstances. Not doing so would be considered a pretty serious breach - I have never been on the bridge of a ship without verifying that this is the case.
Chatter by ''amateurs'' is routinely shut down, very quickly, by ships, shore stations, etc.
Is that not the case on aircraft ?
Ellesmere888 Oh yes, it was just that our radios had the ability to monitor guard built in. No matter what frequency you have selected, if someone talks on 121.5 you hear it. The only time you turn that ability off is during approach and landing when it can be distracting. If your radio doesn’t have this feature then you’d keep a second radio on 121.5, although this leaves you open to ‘finger trouble’ where you select the wrong radio and accidentally transmit on guard - this is always followed by every smug git within 200nm telling you ‘you’re on guard’ 🙄 Admittedly not as bad as pushing the PTT/PA switch the wrong way and doing the cabin announcement on the ATC frequency 😬
Thanks VAS. Nice to see your photo. Good explanation.
*So they switched to ground frequency while still flying and able to receive go-around instructions?* That sounds nuts. Is that standard practice or just a hapless Air Canada thing?
Was waiting for the number to copy down lol
FYSA, it’s “Hawaiian” 12 heavy, not “Beeline” 12 heavy. Thanks for your great videos! Aloha!
I saw this and I was like another one!??? 😂
That was a pretty good video! Maybe pause the video when you speak.
That's what I do👍
When I saw the video in my feed I thought Air Canada had another SFO incident.
How would atc tower use that flashing red beam signaling on only one of the two aircrafts on landing approach if they both are coming in concurrently in same direction on parallel runways?
Perhaps, like VasAvi said, ATC should give separate approach and landing clearances to avoid runway incursions. ACA will have to explain in detail why they lost radio communication; it could be legit. Otherwise, they'll face some consequence? However, ATC shares responsibility for allowing a plane to partially block active runway 28R after ACA was cleared to land.
Also UAL384 could have been told to go around, that would clear 28L, let those two aircraft cross the runway and let the ACA781 land on 28R. But what I don't know if is an aircraft can cross a runway with another aircraft performing a go around just above them.
yep i agree... first come first serve idea.
sending UAL284 to the left runway is a possible issue too.
At SFO it's far easier to have a jet go around on 28R than L. They can just climb out an make a right turn over the bay and get into the regular departure sequence with the main departure runways. A plane on the left would have to climb and go straight out because it can't make a left because of the terrain, it can't turn right because that would take it over 28R. So a go around on the right would take far longer to get back into sequence..
@@GrasponReality Yeah you are right
Telling UAL384 to go around would interfere with ability of the ACA to go around if he suddenly realized he was supposed to, via non-radio means like the tower's red signal gun, which supposedly was used. Two aircraft reacting unexpectedly that close to the tarmac is a recipe for disaster. They are close enough for TKAS conflict; if TKAS engages, there is a 50% chance that UAL would be selected as the ship to descend -- aka finish landing. Precisely what we do NOT want happening! Do you want to gamble 100's of lives on a literal coin toss?
@@xheralt You are right, never said it was a better idea to make the UAL go around, I was just stating another possible scenario. Luckily, I'm not an ATC 🙂
Great breakdown... Can you do the Harrison Ford incident at John Wayne Airport in 2016?
Will do👍
@@VASAviation Thank you. 🐻☺👍
Hehe reminded me of landing without permission in FSX where the controller would repeat “You are not cleared to land, clear the runway” a bunch of times and then finally get fed up and say “ATC services terminated”
Yeah... an AI aircraft lands and doesn't clear quick enough, they tell you to go around but you don't feel like doing another 30 minute approach so you land anyway.
Did you get banned?
@@donwald3436 no, they give you a number to call....
@@IgorAntarov Whose number, Microsoft?
@@donwald3436 The Operator's number, from the Matrix. So you can find an exit.
Is there an FAA or NTSB report about the incident? Thanks
Well, at least this Air Canada pilot wasn't trying to land on top of four aircraft waiting on the taxiway.
Controller stuffed up. You don't stop another aircraft on the runway when there is traffic following on final.
How much does a go round cost. Retrain required for controller.
I say it was a bit of an combination of the atc, and the pilots messing up.
Excellent observations and analysis. I’m sure that pilot got an earful after calling that pilot deviation telephone number.
Lawrence Spinner Indeed, he probably did. But US RT practice was at fault here per VASaviation point #1.
wait omg its V-A-S-Aviation?!? I always called it VASA-Aviation
Here’s my and only mine opinion. Tower procedures need a serious review, tower controller needs additional training, at minimum. Pilots, if they lied (and that is trivial to determine) MUST be sanctioned! Yes, we know they "switched to ground early". But, 121.5 was still there, red light was still there and "we had a radio problem" sounds like a bloody lie in light of later claims by the crew!
tabaks Explain why tower procedures need a review.
What did you think the controller did wrong? Seems to have done a perfectly good job imo.
Do pilots know if transmissions have been stepped on or are continuously stepped on?
I would BET real money those Air Canada pilots were off the tower frequency, chatting with either dispatch, or, with gate assignment frequency... and instead of monitoring both frequencies, they accidentally were not monitoring tower when checking gate assignment.
This is pretty much how it works over the world: approach only clearance is given and on your MDA you finally get your landing clearance. It's common. And that's how you should do it, as ATC.
Абракадабра_Кобра Totally agree! RT practice in the US is better suited to the movie Convoy than commercial aviation!
It's obviously not how you "should" do it if you are an ATC operating in the US, because it's not their procedures. It's certainly valid to debate the relative merits of the relative procedures, but an air traffic controller is obviously not going to just do it "the other way" simply because they think it's better.
While it’s a nice idea it really would be impractical to have to wait for the runway to be clear in order to issue a landing clearance. Most high density airports land aircraft by just a few miles of separation so you would be talking about sometimes only a 10-30 second window to clear an aircraft to land in this case.
That's what the rest of the world does.
VASAviation - I don’t deny it as a bad idea. But the flow times are bad enough going some airports like La Guardia or San Francisco and if they did this they would be worse.
I cant understand why they give pilots a change of frequency so close to landing.. havent they got enough to do landing a plane..? In the UK its about 8 miles out so 4 minutes.. if they dont respond they have time to recall them on the first frequency
Are you going to upload the Southwest airlines incident at Newark
Affirm👍
VASAviation - Thanks
Tower should have cleared the taxiway sooner instead of waiting. Even after hesitation, UAL2065 cleared the runway with plenty of time.
When told to "GO AROUND" you "GO AROUND"
Imagining: 'We had radio problems. We thought you said GROUND.'
You don't know what was going on with taxiways A and B around D, it's gets super busy there, that's why they're holding short of 28L.
para llegar antes a la puerta de embarque que le tocaba y el air canada vió que tenía sitio y paso del tema
i still think US should change the law, and atc not be able to give clear to land while another airplanes are taking of or crossing the runway, just say continue approach;
The Captain has ultimate discretion he can do what he likes but must accept responsibility. My thoughts are they were cleared to land to early, the controller staked the planes on the runway, bad controlling, I bet he learnt some real life stuff from this. Plus he likely had a laundry bill.
In railways you would be shot on the spot for even thinking of giving clearance to an occupied section.
Was this the incident where the pilots had been operational for 15 hours straight or was that the Air Canada flight that lined up with the Taxiway had executed a last minute go around? Not an excuse by a long shot but may explain why they changed frequency early, suffering from "get-me-home-itus" where all you care about is getting home/to the hotel. 99% of the time you'll get away with it, but then the 1% an incident happens.
For me ATC did an amazing job, coming up with a workable plan b so quickly when Air Canada didn't respond
It was United 384 landing on 28 L, correct? I would have had that one go around. There was too much potential for things to go wrong and if something had gone wrong we didn't need that plane piling into the mess.
Yep I was wondering why they didn't order a go around for the 28L aircraft - especially with traffic crossing the runway!
What is the alleged purpose of authorizing the landing of an aircraft with the runway still occupied? Would it be only to make the ATC frequency less congested?
Exactly. Good visibility must be present and this facilitates traffic flow.
Air Canada tidied up the mess.
9:02 i'm having trouble fining the uploaded video he's talking about...any help please?
ua-cam.com/video/_TEOpSszw_o/v-deo.html
@@VASAviation thank you!
I agree with your suggestion that it sounds fishy to have both radios out at the same time.. I wonder if they are completely redundant systems, or if they perhaps share an antenna.. A faulty antenna could account for poor reception at a distance, but the radios working up close.. Anyone have any thoughts about that?
Read my pinned comment.
@@VASAviation Ah! Thanks, I totally missed it. I'll have a look right now. :) Thanks a bunch, for all the wonderful work you do!
@@cavokdotcom not a problem! :)
@@VASAviation Ah.. Well.. Changing the frequency would also explain it! I guess human error the more likely suspect! :D Thanks again!
i got the whole story from the capt :)
Why did the controller, already aware of an issue, give UAL384 clearance to land rather than instruct it go around until the traffic on the taxiway had been able to cross 28L?
UAL384 was going for 28L so he thought he had time to cross airplanes and land UAL and that's what happened.
maybe a go around for southwest 3117 could have solved all the mess?
Southwest was already on the ground.
The controller did a big gamble by offering landing clearance while there was an aircraft still on the runway. It is NOT nice nor clever (and even unprofessionaly) from ACA781 not to monitor the frequency BUT they had their landing clearance !
The controller could have G/A UAL2065 as they not yett had a landing clearance.
OK he managed to fix it but this landing clearance with an aircraft on the runway is just a stupid thing to do (and indeed not allowed in Europe)
Again Terrence and Phillip are not to blame, even if they should have been monitoring the freq.
why the atc didnt make ual2065 cross the runway from the beginning and prevent ACA goin around .Anyways , ACA made a huge mistake.
i would of made 28L go around, once it was obvious 28R was landing
Is it the responsibility of the pilots that if they see the runway isn’t cleared to go around anyway? Surely a pilot who sees an aircraft still somewhat occupying the runway when they’re about to land that common sense says to go around?
Good analysis BUT
we wouldn't be talking about that incident if American controllers would simply use these magic words:
"Air Canada 781 continue approach"
Instead he's giving him the landing clearance despite the runway was not clear. But I guess something big and nasty has to happen before FAA will stick to proper phraseology which works perfectly fine all over the world even in far busier airspaces...
You always need many people to die first before anything changes. That's the way it's always been.
American controllers say to continue approach all the time.
@@N1120A yes and then they say "cleared to land as number 4,..." because they assume that the runway will be clear once the aircraft gets to it. Even if this is no problem at all in 99% it just has to be one time (ie this incident) and everything is screwed up.
It's not without reason that there is a saying in aviation: "never base on assumptions"
American controllers adhere, strictly, to a set of separation standards. If the separation is met, they will clear to land. If it isn't, they say to continue. Then, if there is an anticipated loss of separation, they either cancel approach clearance and say to continue or they tell the aircraft to go around.
@@N1120A Pilot here, not a controller.
This is exactly correct. ATC can (and does) cancel an approach clearance if separation is lost or even if it's obvious that it will be lost.
The tower controller in this incident assumed a radio failure (very rare) did exactly as required.
I don't know about anyone else but I'd much rather be cleared a ways out (with the possibility of a cancelled clearance) than wait until the last second for clearance. Maybe it's because it's what I'm accustom to but I get nervous when I don't receive a clearance while I'm still a ways out. My first assumption is a radio failure.......
Hypothetically the pilots should be punished even if they had an excuse. Unless they didn't receive lights indicating to go around then the controller should be punished for not showing the lights. But I'm sure the pilot just ignored the controllers warnings to go around thinking he can slow down enough before the overlapping aircraft.
Always air canada
Would not be able to give taxiway instruction before landing because there is no way to tell where an aircraft will be on the runway until the aircraft has landedand slowed sufficiently to be able to exit the runway. Whilst a general "area" for a given aircraft type might be known, this is not a constant as runaway conditions, weight of landing aricraft, other aircraft variables (speed/braking efficiency etc), weather etc. all play a factor.
You are wrong. The ATC can say "plan to vacate at DELTA".
@@VASAviation I am not wrong, and your answer is a little misleading. "Plan to" is NOT saying DO IT, it is saying IF you are able to, exit at "whatever taxiway". They say "Plan to" precisely because of the reasons I have given.
@@stevewayne1359 Yes.
Great video Vas, but as you stated only in the USA we do everything ass backwards, clearance should only be given when the aircraft clears the runway. There was so many factors that were involved here like you said the ATC could of use a different taxiway and keep traffic flowing.
KSFO's runway layout seems designed to create conflicts. Two sets of parallel runways, each set ridiculously close to each other yet authorized for simultaneous approaches, with one set crossing the other pair not far askew from the mid-point of both pairs. On a daily, routine, operational basis, this design creates a locus of congestion where the four runway intersections concentrate. This is compounded by limited space on the exit taxiways between each pair of parallel runways. I make no comment on this specific incident as I am do not know all of the details, the scale of the airplanes relative to the map are not accurate, their sizes change over the course of the video and I have no idea if their positions are accurate at any given point in the video timeline to what actually happened. Regardless of who, if any one, was at fault in this incident, KSFO's runway and taxiway layout seems unforgiving and poorly considered from a safety standpoint.
It seems that people sure are missing what is glaringly obvious to an outsider. The aircraft has two radios. One of those radios is tuned emergency frequency while in the landing pattern. failures in both radios very very highly improbable. So that means the emergency frequency was not being monitored because I don't think anybody thinks got the controller would have made those last four go around calls not on the emergency frequency as well as the main one. + as it turns out the pilot had turned to the ground frequency after getting clearance. Is this a rookie pilot this never flown in the united states before? is this something that's allowed to happen mark. So as it turns out there was nothing wrong with his radio the emergency radio wasn't being monitored. Nothing else matters. He was given go around instructions but it was his responsibility to follow NBA observer pilot should have been disciplined for not monitoring the emergency frequency they did not have to radio failures. They had no radio failures. One got turned to the wrong frequency the other one was not being monitored. Nothing else that happened on the ground mattered. He was told to go around 6 * and we all know some of those calls were made on emergency frequencies red light was being flashed at him. That the first aircraft on tango immediately responded to the call to cross 28 left without haste just what saved the day. he responded in a fraction of a second oh, yep we're moving. my only question now is what happened to the pilots and the company. by the way, excellent logical objective video, well done.
I don't think you want to tell a pilot what taxiway to use at the same time you give Landing clearance because it could affect Decisions by the pilot as to where he needs land and it could be shorter than conditions dictate and could pressure them to try to get the airplane to stop too fast to make that taxiway. I've been on a couple of Embraer flights where the pilots seemed to stand on the brakes and go to full thrust reversals making the whole aircraft shutter like crazy just to make an early turnoff. And neither flight was one where we were running behind. I've never felt anything that seemed like it put more stress on an aircraft than that. I can't imagine the amount of wear and tear that puts on an airplane over the years. I worried that these young small Airline pilots without enough hours to Graduate to a bigger Airline were acting like cowboys.
If u are not cleared to land u cannot land period.
I was on short final and didnt have atc clearance. I had no choice to abort landing and get to minimum altitude and give atc shit 😆.
He apologized. He was over loaded and mixed me up with a 737.
But they were cleared to land.
Why not just send United 384 around allowing the two planes waiting to cross to get away from the 28R infringement?
Tango can almost hold 2 airplanes of that size, the SW was only a foot or so passed the hold Bar on Taxi way tango. the ACC pilot said fuck you im not going around because I can see the runway is clear, and ATC caused the issue by stacking 2 panes on Tango and having them stop and wait mid point on a active runway to cross. High speed roll out all the way to the fucking end. note the ACC pilot faced 0 discipline !