AC Lining Up with a Taxiway SFO...?

[Cat Driver]

No problem Rockie fill your boots.

You win two ways, it makes you feel good.

And it distracts from the issue being discussed.

[Rockie]

Uh oh, somebody's a little sensitive about being made fun of...

Tell us again Cat how it took six instructors to make you competent in the 320 sim.

But back to the issue at hand. The issue at hand is what caused an experienced airline crew to mistake a taxiway for a runway. Some people think it's unusual enough to warrant investigation rather than knee jerking it up to incompetence. But those people could be accused of, well...thinking, and that seems to be a bad thing in certain circles.

[Cat Driver]

Tell us again Cat how it took six instructors to make you competent in the 320 sim.

Rockie you need to lighten up a bit.

First off nowhere have I said I was competent on the A320 sim.

I was given the sim time at the Airbus factory for free when the sim was not being used, each time it was with a different instructor only because it just worked out that way.

You probably know far more than I could ever know about the A320 in that I believeyou fly one for Air Canada.

In your opinion is the A320 poorly designed and not compatible with that VFR approach in SFO, if so why does Air Canada put their customers at an unnecessary risk, would it not make more sense using a different airplane to service SFO?

[confusedalot]

Gotta go with the root cause clan.

Two serviceable people in a serviceable airplane in night VMC conditions did something the majority of operators do not do.

Why? How did it happen?

NTSB will do the report and everything else is speculation.

Here is my speculation;

Fatigue
Distraction
The expectation trap (happens to the best)
Low intensity lights on the runway, high intensity taxiway lights (probably not, but hey)
Error in briefing
Inexperience with SFO (which I doubt)

Probably more issues I did not think of,

Get a grip boys and girls, this 19000 hour pilot with no issues in his former career ended up lining up with a taxiway IN A SIMULATOR on the LGA visual.......Talk about a learning experience, rest assured that never happened again.

Shit happens.

[Rockie]

They seem to have mistaken a taxiway for a runway in visual conditions on a visual approach Cat. The one bit of speculation I will indulge in is that it's got nothing to do with the airplane they were flying.

Wrap your head around that.

[confusedalot]

Yup, a visual is a visual. Bus, Boeing, Bizjet, Catalina, Cessna, Piper, and so on. I find it quite sad that eyeballing seems to be cut out of this skill set. For my humble time in the business, it accounted for 80% of my job...............But times change priorities. Like blindly relying on technology.

[Rockie]

We do visuals all the time, including in SFO. Nothing new or unusual with that.

[fixedpitch]

Yup, a visual is a visual. Bus, Boeing, Bizjet, Catalina, Cessna, Piper, and so on. I find it quite sad that eyeballing seems to be cut out of this skill set. For my humble time in the business, it accounted for 80% of my job...............But times change priorities. Like blindly relying on technology.

I'm not sure I get the rush to judgment here. You could turn this comment on its head with equal plausibility. Maybe they were staring out the window too much and saw what they expected to see. A glance down at the technology might have helped with the situational awareness. Someone mentioned expectation illusion. It probably happens a lot more than we realize.

[Black_Tusk]

Admittedly, I do not fly for any commercial carrier. I Didn't know there was pre - qualification required.

Got it.

[confusedalot]

Not throwing rocks,

Your thoughts about why this would happen?

Never happened to me (except in a sim) not trying to justify, but one of the operations I worked required skill in the old and now dead Kai Tak approach in Hong Kong. Few got it wrong.

If ''you'' do it all the time, why did this occur?

Once again, interested in root cause, no time for protectionist innuendo.

[crazyaviator]

Get a grip boys and girls, this 19000 hour pilot with no issues in his former career ended up lining up with a taxiway IN A SIMULATOR on the LGA visual.......Talk about a learning experience, rest assured that never happened again.

Shit happens.

Practice makes perfect. Let me suggest that with the high cost of sim time and limited use of the sim, most pilots are just not getting enough "what if" time to learn and be tested in a myriad of situations in a sim!

[Black_Tusk]

They seem to have mistaken a taxiway for a runway in visual conditions on a visual approach Cat. The one bit of speculation I will indulge in is that it's got nothing to do with the airplane they were flying.

Wrap your head around that.

Anyone who operates into a busy airport at night knows at times it can be quite difficult to see what you want to see. For example I went into Philly for the first time the other day and tower kept asking if I/we had the runway in sight. I could for the life of me not find it. After getting some vectors and tracking the loc in, I finally had it an it was VERY dim. As is DCA, LGA, BOS at night coming in on 4L/4R...

Additional, I was thinking... With the first aircraft on the ground facing the runway that would almost put them in line with the other three aircraft. That could put 4 white nav lights all in sequence and *could* maybe in a moment cause someone to get a bit disoriented, hence why they were so high. Maybe mistook those for approach lighting?. Just a theory, a very loose one. Just stabbing in the dark here.

[Black_Tusk]

Get a grip boys and girls, this 19000 hour pilot with no issues in his former career ended up lining up with a taxiway IN A SIMULATOR on the LGA visual.......Talk about a learning experience, rest assured that never happened again.

Shit happens.

Practice makes perfect. Let me suggest that with the high cost of sim time and limited use of the sim, most pilots are just not getting enough "what if" time to learn and be tested in a myriad of situations in a sim!

To be faaaaaaaiiirr...

I have heard AC's training dept has gone down hill as of late, with instructors quitting to go back to the line and training to be the bare minimum required to get on line. I am not at mainline, so I can't confirm.. just what I'm hearing from a few friends I know who were at Jazz and then went to AC. They said the training was not even close in comparison.

[ogopogo]

What about the flight crew? Would they have been questioned? Grounded? Turn around and fly the next leg?

[FICU]

To FICUs comments, this was an incident that seems to stem from a loss of situational awareness. Being 81ft at 1/4 mile down the taxiway is plausible if you consider that the crews already lacked the proper awareness of the "runway" they were lined up with. For all we know, they could have confused the aircraft lights for approach lights. Since they were not over a runway when they were at 81ft, the 1/4 mile argument is irrelevant. I am perfectly happy to sit and wait for more info and a report, but I wouldn't dare brush off incidents where aircraft come this close together.

I think if the aircraft on the taxiway figured they were going to be landed on they would have said a few more words over the radio... flashed landing lights and turned on strobe lights. My guess is they assumed the AC crew were doing a go-around. Remember it was visual so the AC crew would have seen the aircraft on the taxiway. The report with CVR recordings will be interesting.

[CFM Symphony]

FICU, certainly all plausible as well. The NTSB usually does a very good job of publishing each and every document from the investigations, including the interviews with the crews. Wait and see I suppose, but a very curious incident nonetheless.

[rookiepilot]

....now I know I'm not a commercial pilot at an airline, --but I'll still attempt to ask a relevant question. Please all forgive the ignorance. My application to comment is still pending, LOL.

Cockpit voice recording. We obviously don't know what it says, if it was allowed to keep running and thus overwritten.

Why in this day and age are there not CVR'S capable of saving the last 24 hours, or even 24 years, of cockpit communications, and/ or have those conversations continuously streamed to the cloud?

And before it comes up: Any expectation of privacy is overridden by the public safety value added. All that matters, IMO.

[Cat Driver]

I would love to hear the CVR's in those airplanes these guys flew over.

And I find it interesting when the human factors gurus go on and on about how a plot can have " expectation " of what they are looking at and think it is a runway.

But so far no one has come up with why two pilots would be in the same head space and are unable to identify what they are looking at.

Maybe there should be three pilots seats up there?

Or better still have a seat for a passenger who has no " expectation " of what a runway looks like.

[PROC_HDG]

....now I know I'm not a commercial pilot at an airline, --but I'll still attempt to ask a relevant question. Please all forgive the ignorance. My application to comment is still pending, LOL.

Cockpit voice recording. We obviously don't know what it says, if it was allowed to keep running and thus overwritten.

Why in this day and age are there not CVR'S capable of saving the last 24 hours, or even 24 years, of cockpit communications, and/ or have those conversations continuously streamed to the cloud?

And before it comes up: Any expectation of privacy is overridden by the public safety value added. All that matters, IMO.

Because the pilots are still alive and healthy and I'm sure happy to give an accurate account of what happened, since they are protected by the company's SMS system, non-punitive reporting policy and ACPA.

Are you suggesting that the CVRs should be released to the public? Because that is ridiculous. There is a reasonable expectation of privacy which effectively states that anybody involved with investigating an incident has access to the CVR recording if it is relevant and required. How exactly would you like to change this?

PROC_HDG

[Cat Driver]

Why in this day and age are there not CVR'S capable of saving the last 24 hours, or even 24 years, of cockpit communications, and/ or have those conversations continuously streamed to the cloud?

Good question, even for someone that is not an airline pilot.

[rookiepilot]

Because the pilots are still alive and healthy and I'm sure happy to give an accurate account of what happened, since they are protected by the company's SMS system, non-punitive reporting policy and ACPA.

PROC_HDG

Please explain the non punitive reporting policy.

Specifically, can a pilot be fired based on either CVR recording information, or the results of a post incident interview?

Why, or why not?

I would change the length of saved CVR recordings, to a mandate of a minimum 24 hrs. I cannot see any downside to doing so. Is the ACPA supportive of such a change -- I had thought this issue has come up for discussion.

Again, why or why not?

[PROC_HDG]

Because the pilots are still alive and healthy and I'm sure happy to give an accurate account of what happened, since they are protected by the company's SMS system, non-punitive reporting policy and ACPA.

PROC_HDG

Please explain the non punitive reporting policy.

Specifically, can a pilot be fired based on either CVR recording information, or the results of a post incident interview?

Why, or why not?

The idea of a non-punitive reporting policy is that it allows for full disclosure without the threat of termination. It has been proven to improve safety, by allowing crews to report issues or events that they otherwise wouldn't have for fear of reprehension. Typically these policies exclude events which involved gross negligence etc.

You learn about all of this on day 1 of 705 school.

As for the CVRs, I agree in this digital age they should be able to record for much longer than they do. But that is, as far as I can tell, totally irrelevant to this discussion since the aircraft and crew are intact and safe.

PROC_HDG

[rookiepilot]

Because the pilots are still alive and healthy and I'm sure happy to give an accurate account of what happened, since they are protected by the company's SMS system, non-punitive reporting policy and ACPA.

PROC_HDG

Please explain the non punitive reporting policy.

Specifically, can a pilot be fired based on either CVR recording information, or the results of a post incident interview?

Why, or why not?

The idea of a non-punitive reporting policy is that it allows for full disclosure without the threat of termination. It has been proven to improve safety, by allowing crews to report issues or events that they otherwise wouldn't have for fear of reprehension. Typically these policies exclude events which involved gross negligence etc.

You learn about all of this on day 1 of 705 school.

As for the CVRs, I agree in this digital age they should be able to record for much longer than they do. But that is, as far as I can tell, totally irrelevant to this discussion since the aircraft and crew are intact and safe.

PROC_HDG

Thank you. I am aware of the principle of non punitive reporting in an SMS environment. I was curious how that applied if negligence was shown to have occurred.

I happen to disagree with your last sentance, however, on the relevance of the CVR recording in this case. More information is never irrelevant. The trust, but verify principle.

[Rockie]

Why in this day and age are there not CVR'S capable of saving the last 24 hours, or even 24 years, of cockpit communications, and/ or have those conversations continuously streamed to the cloud?

Good question, even for someone that is not an airline pilot.

That is a great idea provided privacy concerns are satisfied, and it may already exist. I believe they're trying to have real time tracking of aircraft independent of ATC via ADS, and downloaded FDR/CVR's would be a great addition to that. I'm thinking MH370 here.

I know the technology exists today to do that, the problem is retrofitting older airplanes. Do you make operators go to the expense of retrofitting for every advancement in technology? How much are you willing to pay for an airline ticket?

[rookiepilot]

Why in this day and age are there not CVR'S capable of saving the last 24 hours, or even 24 years, of cockpit communications, and/ or have those conversations continuously streamed to the cloud?

Good question, even for someone that is not an airline pilot.

That is a great idea provided privacy concerns are satisfied, and it may already exist. I believe they're trying to have real time tracking of aircraft independent of ATC via ADS, and downloaded CVR's would be a great addition to that. I'm thinking MH370 here.

The problem is retrofitting older airplanes. Do you make operators go to the expense of retrofitting for every advancement in technology? How much are you willing to pay for an airline ticket?

Yes. You make the operator retrofit, for a 24 hr CVR duration, just as operators retrofit important safety advancements all the time.

Privacy concerns are a red herring. You are in a position of substantial public trust and responsibility, Rockie, with thousands of lives under your care. That certainly overrides any concern, IMO, of the company listening to crew conversations.