4 ms·

I am not a commercial airline pilot but it is a topic of fascination for me for a long time - wouldn't this cause a terrain warning? How were the pilots unaware

I am not a commercial airline pilot but it is a topic of fascination for me for a long time - wouldn't this cause a terrain warning? How were the pilots unaware until ATC told them? Something very strange about this story - I guess fatigue makes sense, but that doesn't explain rerouting to fort lauderdale very well to me. I'll toss out a theory - there has been a pilot shortage for the last several years. Are corners getting cut on pilot training? Incompetence explains a lot. This is a really baffling incident to me on its face and reading some takes from aviation experts it seems like I am not the only one that thinks so.

altgoogler 2y ago
They didn't get a terrian warning because they were landing. Being close to the ground is what they expected. They have both radar & pressure altimeters. What might have happened is that due to the poor weather they thought they were closer to the airport, or they weren't closely following their glide path, or the aircraft was misconfigured for the RNAV approach. Perhaps a combination of the three.
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  even 4 miles out from the runway? Thanks I did not know that.
  - p_l 2y ago
    If they are too low according to TAWS map, there would be warning even if they were landing. You can inhibit some of the alerts by switching TAWS into "Terrain Inhibit" mode, but that's usually done for landing at runways outside of TAWS database. That said, TAWS won't fire if you're below airspace-mandated altitude but above "minimally safe" altitude.
bombcar 2y ago
I'm not a commercial pilot but as a private pilot it looks like they were doing a manual approach .... and were lined up with the freeway bridge and attempting to land on it? The blog linked elsewhere looks like a perfect glide path for that ... which you shouldn't be doing. In which case, the terrain warnings would be the standard "you're landing, idiot" noises which wouldn't alert them to anything, because they'd be expecting them.

altgoogler 2y ago

They didn't get a terrian warning because they were landing. Being close to the ground is what they expected. They have both radar & pressure altimeters. What might have happened is that due to the poor weather they thought they were closer to the airport, or they weren't closely following their glide path, or the aircraft was misconfigured for the RNAV approach. Perhaps a combination of the three.

JohnMakin 2y ago
even 4 miles out from the runway? Thanks I did not know that.
- p_l 2y ago
  If they are too low according to TAWS map, there would be warning even if they were landing. You can inhibit some of the alerts by switching TAWS into "Terrain Inhibit" mode, but that's usually done for landing at runways outside of TAWS database. That said, TAWS won't fire if you're below airspace-mandated altitude but above "minimally safe" altitude.

bombcar 2y ago

I'm not a commercial pilot but as a private pilot it looks like they were doing a manual approach .... and were lined up with the freeway bridge and attempting to land on it? The blog linked elsewhere looks like a perfect glide path for that ... which you shouldn't be doing. In which case, the terrain warnings would be the standard "you're landing, idiot" noises which wouldn't alert them to anything, because they'd be expecting them.