This is one of your A+ videos. Very educational. Thank you.

This was epic! Thank you!

For me, this is a poor performance from atc. A plane reporterd barely visual with the runway, and that doesn’t trigger anything to the atc controler. Then a bunch of planes are cleared on a visual approach, with marginal weather, and low ceiling. Atc should have enforced low visibility procedures, to allow subsequent flights to perform a Cat 3 approach autoland, which would for sure have allowed those planes to land on the first approach. In the end, all those flights ended up being at the same point 15 minutes later, with reduced fuel. On medium range plane, it can be ok, but on a long haul plane, you are put in the corner. Weird.

Or Charlie

And land on a taxiway too.

@@TheSeanKlein That's been my experience. On all the AC flights I've been on, there's been one go around that I can recall, and it was only a go-around as there was an emergency aircraft inbound to YYZ

LOL.... ouch

The best part of this is that I just pulled up a SFO airfield diagram and well... let's just say, anything EVER landing on S, even a CV-22, would be legendary 🤣

I find it hard to understand what she is saying.

She was very calm and pleasant indeed

Real reason for going around: They wanted to keep hearing her voice.

Siiimp

She had a very nice tone, but she was definitely very slurred and unclear, i could barely hear what she was saying and I normally don't have problem. Try not looking at the subtitles and just listening, I bet you won't have a clue whats shes saying haha.

That's what she said

When he says, “we got a climb warning,” at 1:14, what does that mean?

millertime10588 If you notice, there’s another plane really close to their aircraft, idk if they had them on parallel approaches or one is higher, doesn’t make a ton of sense, but the pilot does say it was due to traffic. Basically the airplane told him to pull up to avoid another aircraft and he did. another comment confirmed - runways are 600 ft apart, they’d seemingly cleared one on each

@@TheMoose5 @Captain Joe has an excellent video explaining the intricacies of parallel approaches and landings. Don't think the two aircraft were on a parallel approach but it seems the ASA flight may have deviated left causing the SW plane's TCAS or the PRM controller if they were indeed on a parallel approach to issue a traffic alert instructing SW to breakout.

And also parallel approach for 28L/28R is only possible when on visual.

@@TheMoose5tcas ra

Thanks for watching! :)

In Sf city, the fog is called Karl and has a twitter account. But I think the Karl comes directly from the ocean and not that same fog as SFO? SF has such weird weather. While the rest of the country was sweltering, we barely got above 70 during the last summer. We;re like year round room tempature-ish.

Strange story: twitter.com/hashtag/af671a

because SFO is a joke. they have to run much greater spacing and can't do parallel approaches if not visual

It lowers the airport's landing capacity to about a half, maybe even less.

In the missed, not mist.

Ok that makes more sense. Is that a standard phrase in that scenario?

F-Blaster you're right, that's not standard phrasing. Usually they say "on the missed" which is short for "on the missed approach path." I agree that it is much safer to say "on" than "in" because of that exact mixup between missed and mist.

In the missed = Missed approach = go around

American pilots... Most of them dont use proper words

ILS INOP

Yes, the pilots of SWA2060 had a callout coming out from TCAS alerting them to climb due to possible collision.

TCAS RA, Tcas resolution advisory, is mandatory to perform a GoAround and comply with TCAS conflict resolution instructions. In San Francisco now you have to select TCAS on "TA only"(Traffic advisory only) once you are established on the LOC or you have the preceding aircraft in sight, this is in order to avoid conflict resolutions during the final approach phase.

TCAS stands for Traffic Collision Avoidance System. TCAS will give off very loud, very clear instructions for pilots to follow if two planes are too close together, or are on a collision course. In this case, the TCAS announced in the cockpit "CLIMB, CLIMB!" If the the pilots were to take too long to comply with the instructions, TCAS would announce "DESCEND, DESCEND!" In the other airplane.

Then she said "clear to land"

yourgreatestenvy ILS and other non visual approaches have a whole slew of rules and separation requirements that can restrict the operation more than visual approaches do. Let’s take an ILS for example. You have to vector (or guide) the aircraft to intercept the localizer no earlier than a certain point on final And below the glide slope. The pilot has to follow the approach procedure for that specific approach and the clearance is usually longer. But if a pilot can see the runway and be cleared for a visual approach then they are able to basically Just land the plane, however they want. They can fly direct to the runway and they don’t have any crossing altitudes to deal with unless the controller specifies. It’s like telling you “drive 5 mph until you hit the fire hydrant, then take a right turn and drive 4 mph. Count to five then turn right again until you’re in your driveway and stop.” Vs. “Don’t turn until you see the fire hydrant then park in your driveway” Lol, hopefully that answers your question.

Ahh that makes a lot more sense now. Appreciate the response

Don't forget, they also have taxiways for Air Canada approaches!

Don’t worry. It’s all I got.

Charted visuals yes. SFO is already backed up when it’s clear and a million. They try to hang on to sidebys as long as possible to avoid the extremes delayed caused by cutting the rate for ILSs

If they’re advertising charted visuals some aircraft will still want to fly the ILS. They’ll still be expected get their pairing traffic in sight. When the field is IFR, we use 7110.308 operations.. which is closely spaced parallel ILS approaches. There’s a 1 mile stagger and several other rules that have to be applied, but at the end of the day, they’ll be 1 mile in trail on ILSs that are 750ft apart without seeing a thing.

Actually I just read the explanation further down in the comments. Thanks!

Not oficial

Not official but missed approach is used a lot

The VFR arrival rate is 56 per hour. That doesn’t mean they all come in evenly spaced out though. Sometimes you’ll get 30’of those in the first 15 minutes and the rest trailing in.

I believe she said "In the mist". Which is still weird phraseology, I'll admit, but makes sense given the context.

"In the missed" means "going missed-approach and flying the procedure for it"

@@philtll - if that is indeed the case, then it's non-standard phraseology (per ICAO and FAA regs) that should have been avoided.

I dont think that "in the missed" could ever be unclear and its only missing one word. The others said go around which is way worse phraseology! It sounds like ground and has caused incidents in the past.

This is not a game. That Tracon program has been developed by and for VASAviation.

@@VASAviation Oh wow. But it is not a public application which shows all traffic, right? I mean is this accessable, like e.g. an alternative to Flightradar24.com somewhere?

It was inop

There’s a long detailed answer here with several reasons that could validate the reason they stay on visual. The short simple answer is efficiency and not everything happens instantly.

Because they’re using charted visual approaches. The airport doesn’t have to be in sight for them to clear them for a visual approach. Just one of the other charted landmarks. They usually use the bridges, San Mateo or Dumbarton.

12345fowler depends if the airplane can do it.

What is LVP?

That's the flight number.

VASAviation - ive never really seen a flight number as such a low number i meant.

That’s United’s Singapore flight. Flights 1 and 2.

FrenchFruits the short answer is that the pilot has to see the ground by a certain altitude in order to continue with the landing. If they don’t have the runway in sight by that altitude they have to go around and try again. “We never broke out” means that they never descended out of the clouds so they were unable to see the ground and had to go around.

3 statue miles.

@@VASAviation thanks

@@VASAviation Sorry for the pickiness... statuTe miles, not statue miles. :)

3 statute miles of visibility.

+gummel Your avatar worked!

Because ILS means tougher separation rules both in the air and on the ground (everyone on thr ground has to stay further away from the RWY not to disturb the ILS beams). So ILS was officially not available at thr moment probably.

You have the date in the beginning of the video.

VASAviation - thanks. It would be really nice if the date was in the description too!

Because if they go to the ILS the in trail spacing goes up which causes the arrival rate to decrease and delays. Couple that with at SFO the can't have both ILS approaches at the same time. One has to be a PRM. Which the weather would be to low for that. So if they go to the ILS approach they go from having two runways with 3 mile in trail spacing to having one runway with 5 mile in trail spacing.

Hm, this make sense - limited capability airfield equipment, but I think so is something better lowering landing rate than increasing waiting crowd in air. At some point was one successful landing on 3 approaches - which rate was even worse. Edit: I check KSFO charts now - both 28 runways have separate ILS beams, no sideslip needed, and may be parallel landings. 28R has CAT III - may be autolanded if aircraft has equipment to do.

Is a good question Adam but KSFO is an overcrowded airport like many others in USA. Once approach controllers gives you the finals vectors he also keep asking you if you have the either the runway or the preceding aircraft in sight. Once you declare visual contact they authorize you for a visual approach, this decrease the working load of the controller and decrease the spacing between aircrafts as Matthew was saying. Decreasing the spacing that can fit more arrivals. Just an example yesterday the ceiling was OVC between 1000ft to 1500ft and using the 19L/R arrivals and we were touring over the pacific with delay vectors because they couldn't authorize many visual approaches.

Matthew Pressley interesting, can you direct us to where you obtained that information?

Adam W. Although 28L and 28R have separate ILS beams, the two runways are physically too close together to allow parallel approaches in IMC conditions without offset thresholds, which provides additional safety margins from vertical separation. According to FAA regulations, parallel ILS approaches on runways without offset thresholds may only be conducted when they are 4,300 feet apart, down to 3,000 feet upon special consideration (which SFO's runways are not), versus just 700 feet for visual (SFO actually has special procedures to allow simultaneous visual approaches for its runways that are only 600 feet apart).

Smileyheckster who's "oof" and why did you have to kill him?? Why????? 😜

oh *facepalm* supposed to be muttered(I was really confused by your reply for a sec)XD

😂 glad we got it settled

GL Aviation That's the visibility on the tarmack.

Francesca DaRimini Oh ok

There is no area on the airport that is called the tarmac by the way. It's the material that is used.

N0616JC Productions Thank you for the information. Tarmac is pilot slang. Are you a pilot, too? My base is Klee.

3SM wasn't the cause of the amount of the go-arounds. It's the mist, fog in this case. If you're keen on the text in the video, there was a *special metar* report issued at *16:40** UTC* for *KSFO* with the *wind* coming _from_ *130* with _speed_ of *3* nautical miles per hours (knots - kt). *Visibility* was *3* _Statue Miles_ with *mist* - as indicated with the BR abbreviation in the metar. The cloud cover was *broken* at _400_ feet above the airport. In my unprofessional decoding of the special metar, it's the obscuration caused by the mist or fog coupled with the broken - 7/8 of the sky is covered in clouds - 400 ceiling of the cloud at the airport making it hard for pilots to make visual contact with the runway to be able to make a safe landing. In addition, with a broken ceiling of 400, it's not even visual flight rules anymore and pilots would have to do instrument flight rules so they would be able to fly safely. Moreover, most of the instrument approaches into airports have a minimum of 200 above ground level. This means that if you can't make out the runway or any part of it by the time you get to 200 feet above the ground at the airport, you have to try the approach again.

I doubt it. We get the pilots to see each other before we can get them closer than 1000ft vertical Or 3 miles lateral. It’s a safe and efficient operation.

@@jaymonty6530 Maybe when they are in the air. I am talking about coming in for a landing where there are two different parallel runways and parallel taxiways. The approach requires precision because you can easily mistake a taxiway for a runway as happened with the Air Canada 759 pilots. They only went around because the tower told them to go around after a concerned pilot said "where is this guy going? He's on the taxiway" meaning he was coming in to land on Taxiway C where four planes were parked waiting to take off. At the time the left runway 28L was out of service so the pilots of 759 saw 28R and the parallel taxiway, Taxiway C, and assumed 28R was actually 28L and Taxiway C was the right runway (28R), the correct runway in their minds. In reality there were three jumbo jets and a 737 parked on Taxiway C waiting to take off. The Air Canada 759 cleared the four planes by less than 50' feet!!! It is estimated 1,000 people could have died had they not gone around in time. They were literally 2 seconds away from one of the worst air crash disasters in aviation history!

@@incandesantlite I’m aware of the details of the incident. It was a combination of pilot errors, and it led to updated procedures to prevent that from happening again. 28L was closed when this happened . The aircraft was cleared for a visual approach to 28R. The pilots (having not actually listened to the atis (im assuming) didn’t know 28L was closed and the lights were turned off so it was dark. They saw the lights for 28R, but it was on the left side. I guess the blue taxiway lights to the right looked more like white runway lights that night, and errors were made when they lined up for the taxiway. They also took a long time to respond to the go around instructions from the tower controller, which had they been followed the first time, it would have been nowhere near that close. Visual approaches don’t require localizer or glide slope guidance, so it’s possible (yet unlikely) to line up for the wrong strip of pavement. Since that incident NorCal approach won’t clear anyone for a visual approach at night when a runway is closed. Making it a requirement to track the localizer and glide slope, or GPS to the correct piece of pavement on the airport. It’s unlikely to happen again.

@@jaymonty6530 Yeah I think it was a case of the Air Canada pilots not reading/receiving the NOTAM saying runway 28L would be closed so they weren't expecting it to be closed. Also there were issues with pilot fatigue with the Air Canada crew. In my opinion the Air Canada crew should've gone around after they asked the tower why there were lights on the runway they were supposed to be landing on and the tower said there was no one on 28L but them.

@@incandesantlite 💯%! It was the holes in the Swiss cheese model lining up. Hopefully the added safety measures will help prevent things like this in the future. Nothing is ever completely fail safe. But I am confident in saying it’s very unlikely an event like that will happen again. Especially anytime soon. I think there’s actually more attention on the SFO parallels than others. Since they’re only 750ft apart, there’s a lot more oversight snd checks and balances. But again, there’s always risk in aviation. We do our best to eliminate as much as possible.

vchia1234 they were probably running charted visual approaches, which only requires the aircraft to have a bridge (San Mateo or dumbarton) or airport in sight. The pilot can see only the dumbarton bridge and be cleared for the visual approach.

Hey look internet pilot is here

Jake Walton they always use 27 unless for weather, unless I’m mistaken. If they are using ILS 9, then they are departing 9 as well.

No, they will depart on 27 in the fog if the wind requires it, even if ILS landings on 9 are happening.

Jake Walton hmm. That’s unheard of, and I’ve never seen it, but I will keep an eye out, that would involve some interesting vectoring indeed. Thanks for the info!

You bet - here is a link to a screen grab of KSAN head-to-head operations - they keep SOCAL busy! twitter.com/JakeWaltonSD/status/947532262827888641

Did Karl get clearance?

I think they stand for what ATC frequency they are on (D)eparture , (A)rrival , (T)ower

John Doe, Could you tell us how much separation is required?

Separation on final is determined by multiple factors. Whether the aircraft (or tower) can see each other, what the weight class of the leading aircraft is and what kind of procedures and even waivers the approach has. Standard separation is 3 miles between two same sized aircraft. But at SFO when they do closely spaced parallel operations they can go down to as little as one mile on final between two aircraft on ILS’s to the left and right. Then you throw in heavies and supers and you need 5,6,7,8 miles depending on what’s following them.

Jordan Rankin Unfortunately, not all aircraft can do autoland.

Though some could have, they were below minimums, which even if autoland they must reach. One said “we never broke out” which means they didn’t break out before minimums.

That’s not what autoland is for

Nope - Cat II ILS give only lower decision height, but no autoland capability.

Correction - 28R has ILS CAT III and may use autoland, if aircraft equipment and pilots certification allows this. 28L has ILS CAT II.

yeah, same comment from me. "Going around" is a pretty important statement, shouldn't screw around with it.

You're right but I suspect he said "in the mist".

It’s what separates the airline pilots from GA

Look on the bright side, you get in a chair and whine. What nationally is it that thinks that's valuable work and makes them superior to anyone?

Cause we invented it 😂

Miles: As an American I agree with you. Using the term "in the missed" in these conditions shows a lack of responsibility and a juvenile attitude that has no place in aviation. And yes this trait is more American than it is of other nationalities.