25 ms·
A Lufthansa A350's frustrating Oakland diversion
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jtagen 3y agoI wonder if it was an option to say "okay", continue circling, then declare a fuel emergency and land. Seems like ATC was being a dick here. Not sure: 1) How long this would take 2) If this actually endangers anyone/anything
- kabes 3y agoProblem is that emergencies also involve a lot of paperwork and delay for the pilot.
- kspacewalk2 3y agoSeems like ATC has dozens of airplanes to route and cannot give preference to those who have the strictest company policy and complain the loudest.
- FireBeyond 3y agoThey can and do all the time. ATC would also have known the previous shift that this flight was late and would require it. 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".
- kayodelycaon 3y agoDeclaring a fuel emergency when your alternative is only a few miles away is bound to get someone in trouble.
- JAlexoid 3y agoThe fuel emergency would have been literally a result of the ATC staff. Instead of this back and forth, the answer should have been - we cannot take you on ILS in the next X time, consider diverting. Giving the sense of "we'll take you in within X minutes" to the pilot is disingenuous at best. ATCs job is literally safety.
- db48x 3y agoThat’s not how it works though. Before the pilots ever leave their starting airport they load up enough extra fuel to fly to their alternate airport and land there safely. Then they add on the “final reserve” fuel, which is enough fuel to fly for at least another half hour or 45 minutes (depending on airline and region). Together that fuel is called the “minimum fuel”. When an airplane gets down to minimum fuel it must declare that it has reached minimum fuel and is diverting to its alternate. They can only declare an emergency if they are down to the final reserve, and by that time they are expected to have already landed at their alternate. Unless their was a mechanical problem or a fuel leak, failing to divert before reaching minimum fuel would be an error by the pilots, not the ATC. Declaring an emergency just to skip ahead in line, when they still have not even reached minimum fuel yet, would not help the pilot’s career.
- kqr 3y agoYou are correct. Technically a fuel emergency should also be declared if the pilots expect to land with less than reserve fuel, not just when they are starting to consume the reserve.
- renewiltord 3y agoIf you get to that point and you haven't diverted you're losing your job AFAIK. "I just followed instructions and ended up in an emergency" won't fly. ATC isn't flying the plane.
- kokken 3y agoI’m sure the industry has standards for assigning blame, but it looks to me that ATC is clearly being assholes here. 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.
- dxf 3y agoThe current top comment on the article explains the situation, and ATC are "not being assholes here": >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
- Zetobal 3y agoJust tell the pilots that the ATC in NorCAL is also bound to policies and they have to divert. No need to be a dick.
- JAlexoid 3y agoThe ATC should have just told them that, from the get go. They know exactly how many aircraft are headed their way, the pilot doesn't
- toast0 3y ago> The controller clears the Lufthansa jet to make a visual approach, and the Lufthansa pilot advises “due to company procedures, we are unable visual approach at nighttime” > The controller then advises that “if that’s the case, then it will be extended delays”
- db48x 3y agoThe individual controller won’t know exactly how many airplanes are ahead of this one, and even if they did they can only estimate the delay. In this case the estimate they gave the plane turned out to be optimistic, because the planes ahead of them were taking longer to land than expected. Certainly saying “This conversation is over” would be rude in most circumstances, but it merely reflects the reality that a controller can only spend so much time talking to each crew. The crew already had all the information the controller could give them, and simply needed to make a decision rather than ask more questions.
- aaronbrethorst 3y agoThis feels 'of a type' with the rest of the crisis in the United States's air traffic control system. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/business/air-traffic-controllers-safety.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/business/air-traffic-cont...
- riversflow 3y agoI see this as a reap what you sow moment for Lufthasa. 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.
- snypher 3y ago“okay, you promised me 10 minutes, that ran out four minutes ago, so how many more minutes?” Seems to me that ATC need to get it together also.
- wtallis 3y agoYeah, whether Lufthansa's polices are reasonable or excessively cautious is debatable, but the ATC here obviously gave unambiguously wrong information about the delay.
- kayodelycaon 3y agoDelays are estimates. They can’t be guaranteed. All it takes is one other plane to be slow to act.
- wtallis 3y agoEstimates and predictions that turn out to be wrong are still wrong. And when the estimate was wrong by 50% and counting, and the ATC wasn't offering any information other than another dubious estimate, and the ATC was not handling the flights in a FIFO order, the Lufthansa pilots were left with uncomfortably little useful information about their situation.
- cycomanic 3y agoJust a note the estimate wasn't just wrong by 50% the pilots had already been told 10min twice before, so estimate was more than 300% off by that time.
- lowbloodsugar 3y agoSeems like Lufthansa has decided it's not able to land planes at SFO at night.
- Ekaros 3y agoThey decided that they don't want to be part of preventable accident.
- lowbloodsugar 3y agoTheir article implied that every other airline was happy with the procedure, so it seems like Lufthansa decided that they don't want to train their pilots. Was this an exceptional day at SFO? From my experience of SFO, doesn't seem like it (too many planes, too little time). So are you saying that it's just dangerous to fly on the other airlines into SFO?
- YeBanKo 3y agoPilots can be d*cks, but recently there was a string of ATC related incidents, where ATC show questionable judgment and become too "moody" too soon. Here is another example: https://twitter.com/jasonrosewell/status/1733645088473989245 https://twitter.com/jasonrosewell/status/1733645088473989245 JBU going too slow, instead of assigning a new speed and then scolding the pilot, ATC starts giving the attitude before telling him what he wants.
- jMyles 3y agoThe bigger issue here is that the ILS is being set aside in favor of visual approaches in order to slot in a few more approaches per hour. What's the point of equipping SFO with ILS if it's just going to sit idle?
- kayodelycaon 3y agoILS is needed when conditions don’t allow visual approaches. Like, clouds existing.
- jaywalk 3y agoClouds at SFO???? Never!
- CaliforniaKarl 3y agoCharted/Published visual approaches use the localizer part of the ILS equipment, and pilots have the option of using the glide slope. “ILS” is equipment, but it’s also procedures and (increased) spacing (compared to visual separation).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kortilla 3y agoIt’s not “a few”. Parallel landings allow double the throughput.
- daedalus_f 3y agoLike in the youtube video's comments section, I suspect everyone on HN is going to assume that the ATC was simply being petty, and perhaps that was the case. But... 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.
- antonjs 3y agoVASAviation has a video on this incident with commentary from a NorCal controller, showing the (large amount of) inbound traffic. [1] [1] https://youtu.be/4zHxdn8oz20?si=6ENIvIot7Q3LSJHO https://youtu.be/4zHxdn8oz20?si=6ENIvIot7Q3LSJHO
- aworks 3y agoInteresting. 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.
- Hansenq 3y agoThere's a follow up video to the one linked in the story that provides a lot more context missing in this piece. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zHxdn8oz20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zHxdn8oz20 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.
- michaeljx 3y agoFrom what I understand, despite the tower not being able to create a gap for 30+ minutes,which although extreme may be understandable due to SFO being the way it is, another major factor was the fact that the tower was unable to provide a realistic estimated time to enter the circuit. That is completely unacceptable.
- CaliforniaKarl 3y agoIf you mean “traffic pattern” (from https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/media/pcg_10-12-17.pdf https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/media/pcg_10-12...), that is also something you would do visually, which I don’t think Lufthansa would accept. 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-controllers-shortage-close-calls-senate-safety-near-miss-senate https://www.npr.org/2023/11/09/1211838624/air-traffic-contro...).
- YeBanKo 3y agoMaybe the reason why Lufthansa does not allow visual approach at SFO at night, could be after the Air Canada near miss. > 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Canada_Flight_759 [2] https://www.flightglobal.com/faa-changes-san-francisco-landing-procedures-after-a320-near-miss/125135.article https://www.flightglobal.com/faa-changes-san-francisco-landi...
- koyote 3y agoThere's also this crash that happened while ILS was broken: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214 This was ultimately pilot error but also due to the fact that the pilots were not as accustomed to doing visual landings.
- thriftwy 3y agoPilots are not going to be accustomized of visual landings in case of emergency, if you have a corporate policy that forbids them in controlled setting! 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)
- philip1209 3y agoI can't find a source, but I thought I read somewhere that these policies came following the Asiana Flight 214 crash [1], during which a plane did a visual approach to SFO instead of ILS. My understanding was that there was a rule change requiring ILS approaches at night at SFO, then the airlines implemented policies duplicating the rules in their policies, but then the rules were revoked - still leaving airline policies in place. Anybody have any sources on this? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214
- karcass 3y agoI got my pilot's license in the Bay Area and transited SFO's class bravo frequently. The region has one of the world's most complex airspaces (a B, two Cs, and a crap-ton of Ds), and SFO has a mind-boggling amount of traffic for an airport of its size. Based on my lived experience in that airspace, I think ATC did the best they could in a tough position, and I think that Lufthansa asking for special treatment is the asshole move. If they demand ILS in VFR conditions, they should schedule their arrival times to less-busy times.
- mandevil 3y agoThey normally do- this flight left MUC two hours late which was why it was part of the VFR landing sequence on this one day and is not normally a problem.
- KennyBlanken 3y agoAnd the flight is twelve hours, with a filed flight plan. None of the controllers were even on-shift when SFO knew they'd need to have an ILS slot for the flight. That's why the pilot is exasperated when he finds out there isn't one. 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."
- vkou 3y ago> 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." It's more like showing up two weeks late to your dinner reservation, on a Valentine's Day Friday night rush, and being upset that you don't have an accurate ETA to get seated.
- dodobirdlord 3y agoIt’s not the ATCs job to get the plane down at the primary airport, on the pilot’s preferred schedule, in accordance with the airline’s policy of using ILS for landing at SFO at night. Any two would be a satisfactory outcome, and it sounds like the pilot could in fact have picked any two (well, it sounds like Lufthansa policy prohibited just getting in the VFR queue). Nobody was ever in danger and the worst case scenario was that the plane lands at Oakland, which was always a possibility from the moment they took off. If landing at Oakland is such a disaster Lufthansa could have canceled the flight once it became clear that they were running 3 hours late, had missed their originally planned slot, and would be landing at night.
- babyshake 3y agoThis is coming from someone who only has experience as a commercial flight passenger, but I would expect AI to be very promising for ATC. Obviously there are various concerns ranging from potential attack vectors and the need for failsafes if any automated system fails, but has this been explored?
- hef19898 3y agoCurrent AI is nowhere close to be good enough for that. After all, there are literally hundreds of lives at stake every given minute, not sure you want some whacked together ML model or other run your aircrafts landing approach in bad wheather and high traffic.
- ripper1138 3y agoThis is the type of take that proves AI is in a hype bubble right now.
- throwbadubadu 3y agoThat is satire, right? We can discuss more/better automation and tooling aids and planning aids and whatever tech.. there are so many options you can bring in there before even thinking of any $+#(&#&$ AI in safety critical things?! Exploring what, the many ways it could hilariously fail?
- rsynnott 3y agoOh, my, AI really is becoming the new blockchain, isn’t it?
- Animats 3y agoThere's a better discussion of the Lufthansa situation at [1]. ILS landings require more spacing. The ILS system itself just shows the way to the runway, not what other aircraft are doing. In a visual approach in busy conditions, the pilot can see the aircraft ahead. In an ILS approach, it's assumed that they can't. This leads to ATC wanting to use visual approaches to get more planes landed. [1] https://ops.group/blog/us-visual-approaches-lh458/ https://ops.group/blog/us-visual-approaches-lh458/
- wkat4242 3y agoMaybe there should be a class for visual ILS with the same separation as visual approaches and less chance of error. Just like visual VFR exists. It would make the use of ILS in these situations easiest.
- lmm 3y agoFrom other posts it sounds like SOIA is the "right" solution here, but SF has not reenabled it post-COVID, perhaps due to labour shortages.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- YeBanKo 3y agoThe article seems to be misleading a little, because it was not 10 min in total. 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.
- jquery 3y agoAfter that extra 4 minute delay, the pilot made a bluff because he had get-there-itis and the ATC controller called the bluff. Honestly I don't see what the controller did wrong here. If anything was unprofessional it was threatening to call an emergency and then arguing with ATC
- filleduchaos 3y agoHow is it get-there-itis for a pilot to have to remind air traffic control that they have not provided an update they are supposed to have provided? 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.
- jquery 3y ago"if we are not set up for base soon, we will have to declare fuel emergency and that would really ** up your sequence" - pilot 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?
- filleduchaos 3y agoI...don't see how that is "100% out of line". Again I am very confused by the sentiment here - unless you are ignoring how much time the Lufthansa bird actually spent on hold (34 minutes before the statement you're quoting) and/or the regulations on (as well as the physical reality of) fuel consumption, jumping to the conclusion that the Lufthansa pilot is bluffing is very strange. On top of that, the idea that the controller has carte blanche to "call [his] bluff" is patently absurd. So is the framing of diverting them to their alternate airport as "calling a bluff", when diverting to Oakland is exactly what the controller should have done from the beginning instead of giving them an ultimately wrong estimate and forgetting they were there. Then again this is a board targeting the software dev industry, so I don't know why I'm surprised.
- reso 3y ago> Pilot: If we are not set up for base soon, we will have to declare a fuel emergency and that would really fuck up your sequence. > 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.
- markus92 3y agoPilot was bluffing. If they call an emergency, they can do whatever they want. But they can't just call a fuel emergency if they have enough fuel to divert to a viable alternate - that's not how the system is supposed to work. They're supposed to divert if they get close to minimum fuel and can't land at their primary airport. 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.
- KennyBlanken 3y agoIt's a safety issue when the plane is getting low on fuel and the crew are fatigued from a long international flight, and the only reason they're being told no is because of policies designed to maximize airport/airline profits. 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.
- perihelions 3y agoThere was a major airliner crash at JFK caused (partly) by poor communication between pilots and ATC, resulting in the plane running out of fuel, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_052 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_052 (1990) https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-words-not-spoken-the-crash-of-avianca-flight-052-c69145b326f2 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."
- tomohawk 3y agoAs a pilot, your first job is to fly the airplane, not listen to ATC. 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.
- bombcar 3y agoExactly. If the flight had been in real danger the pilot would have declared an emergency (and then had to answer to why didn’t he divert to Oakland). But if you declare an emergency the first thing you may do is not insist on flying the ILS separation.
- cycomanic 3y ago> 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?
- jcalvinowens 3y ago> major airliner crash at JFK caused (partly) by poor communication between pilots and ATC 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.
- StopHammoTime 3y agoJust a clarifier for everyone - a fuel emergency is not what you think it is. They don’t run until the last drop. While it indicates the aircraft should be handled without delay, it’s also not going to fall out of the sky immediately either. 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.
- pdx_flyer 3y agoOverall it feels like a punitive measure against Lufthansa, rather than spending the time to get them an ILS clearance. For reference the flight is usually a 6:45p arrival but was very late on the evening in question.
- somewhereoutth 3y ago6:45pm 18:45 18h45 A quarter to seven in the evening
- InCityDreams 3y ago0645pm (<- an abomination!) 1845. (no colon)
- ideator 3y agohttps://youtu.be/o7RId2iiZng?si=ERMLyrSwkrLL6xmh https://youtu.be/o7RId2iiZng?si=ERMLyrSwkrLL6xmh 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
- gosub100 3y agoI really worry that SFO is going to have a major disaster. There have been so many close calls recently, the controllers have been making mistakes and acting out against pilots, there are 4 runway intersections (which other major airports are phasing-out), they have a fog problem, and an enormous amount of flow, and tons of air traffic and airports all around them.
- talkingtab 3y agoA couple of things to add: 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.
- calf 3y agoBeing rude and grumpy a) tilts everyone else, b) everybody's cortisol levels to up, c) cortisol stress impairs cognition especially problem solving and interpersonal skills, d) thus INCREASING the risk of mistakes and accidents. Modern psychology, more professionals should keep updated about it.
- lsh123 3y ago1/ Visual vs instrument approach. The main difference in this case is separation requirements that ATC must provide. Specifically, under IFR rules ATC mus provide 3 miles / 500 feet altitude separation minimum. For visual approaches, the separation is responsibility of the pilots and this enables parallel runway landings at SFO with much shorter intervals (there is a version of parallel landings with instrument approaches at SFO but it discontinued during Covid and not resumed since AFAIK). 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.
- InCityDreams 3y ago>Last minute request is a surprise nobody needs. Can/ should be applied to so many on-the-ground situations, too.
- ww520 3y agoYes. I got the feeling that the pilot was playing the cry-wolf game with the threat of declaring fuel emergency. ATC then responded with, ok, divert. It’s a case of FAFO.
- ho_schi 3y agoThis is not a special Lufthansa thing. The majority of airlines from Europe limit visual approaches to daylight. 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.
- throwaway2037 3y agoNice post. This part: <<This is not a special Lufthansa thing. The majority of airlines from Europe limit visual approaches to daylight.>> This sounds reasonable to me as a safety precaution. I tried Googling, but I couldn't find anything. How do you know this information?
- ho_schi 3y agohttps://youtu.be/qNtDdmq-b5M?si=hoMslBXthGoj9YZU https://youtu.be/qNtDdmq-b5M?si=hoMslBXthGoj9YZU 09:50 It is not Lufthansa specific and applies also for many other airlines. Quote German pilot working for Condor. Sadly there are no closed-captions in English available. https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/47652 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. Quote I anssume access to the individual company procedures isn’t possible.
- throwaway2037 3y agoExcellent reply. Thank you!
- 6stringmerc 3y agoIf you read Sabre annual statements going back 10 years it’s well know the FAA has been totally deprived of ability to remedy these issues. Frankly I don’t care since Delta dumped my Dad’s pension on me and my generation fuck that industry.
- nerdponx 3y ago> well know the FAA has been totally deprived of ability to remedy these issues. 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?
- blindriver 3y agoI find it fascinating that pilots and ATC from around the world can understand each other on such a poor resolution channel.
- blt 3y agoIt always sounds worse on LiveATC because the antennas are weaker and not optimally placed
- account4mypc 3y agoas an aside, i'd feel safer if more airlines had this policy
- isatty 3y agoRegardless of what everyone is saying about the controller, I think the pilots behavior was disrespectful (to both ATC and to the lives of those on their plane) and unprofessional. 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.
- cycomanic 3y agoThey were put in holding pattern with estimate of 10min, 20min later they again get told it will be another 10min and after 14mins go by the pilot asks "hey you have been repeatedly putting me off with 10min estimates I'm about to run low on fuel" how is that disrespectful?
- Ekaros 3y agoThey just are not allowed follow policy designed to eventually kill people. Seems reasonable to me... And the ATC knew that plane with that policy was coming and were not prepared to create sufficient slot for safe landing instead of their unsafe one.
- binary132 3y agoWhat’s the big deal? Sounds like everything got negotiated just fine. SFO couldn’t accommodate an ILS landing at the moment, the Lufthansa flight required landing sooner, so they diverted. Some people got inconvenienced? That’s a shame.
- astrange 3y agoI was just booking a flight through Lufthansa and was amused to see the English in all their emails/website is kind of bad, 2000s Japan-level. 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.
- mattpallissard 3y agoI had a lufthansa flight cancelled due to company policy of how long you could sit on the tarmac. They had an instrument go bad, had a spare on hand but couldn't find it in time. 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.
- ta1243 3y agoThat sounds particularly bad, EU261 should mean a reroute on another airline. Unless you were in a very isolated place with no spare seats 4 days would not be reasonable.
- pdonis 3y agoPrevious HN discussion of another article on this same incident: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38511140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38511140
- jersa 3y agoI thought I would just briefly pop into this thread to say that if I, as a passenger, were to learn that the flight* I was unexpectedly diverting across the bay, I just know I'd somehow embarrass myself from getting all hyphy about my "bonus" trip to Oaktown. Raising my daughter there through the grade school years conjures up some warm memories. Love that town. 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)
- petesergeant 3y agoReasonably sure the passengers all had to stay on the plane
- higeorge13 3y agoEuropean here; what’s so special about Oakland? :-)
- csours 3y agoI see a huge problem here with "Everybody Knows", even among the people who sound like air transport professionals. 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.
- phendrenad2 3y agoSo much talk of who's at fault here, but what strikes me is that it ever got to this point. I feel like competence is at an all-time low in recorded history. Maybe we need to take a step back and go back to horse-drawn carriages until we've re-learned how to be responsible. I have a flight this week and this isn't helping my anxiety.
- kqr 3y agoThink about it the other way around: this incident wasn't even close to an actual emergency – and it still gets a lot of discussion because it's so rare that it happens.
- lotusride 3y agoHey guys - airline pilot here. Will respond shortly.