Yeah, scary stuff ..... and more scary that, in 2016 a good landing (as opposed to a "great landing" ) could be caused by the air crew overriding the flight computers!

Delta buy 10% of AF/KLM.

AF/KLM buys 31% of Virgin Atlantic

Delta deepening longstanding partnership with Air France-KLM through 10% equity investment | Delta News Hub

RB's letter to VS staff https://www.virgin.com/richard-brans...irgin-atlantic

How cool is this?

That;s pretty neat!

Has anyone else seen this article?

That would have been a total disaster had someone not given the 'Go Around' command. I don't understand how, at night, they were not using the ILS... and the ILS would have been screaming at them that they were off the glideslope.

That's really cool

I don't understand how they wouldn't have known they weren't established on the localizer, unless there was something up with their NAV radios or something, misaligning the signal. I highly doubt SFO ATC would have given clearance for a VFR landing at night, so that was a hell of a screw up there.

Right - and even if it was VFR, the taxi lights of several large jets queued up should have been a clue that this was not the runway, especially at just above 60 feet!

OMG! I saw a report of that a few days ago. .... It reminds me of a report IIRC somewhere around 25 years ago when a flight arriving at LHR at night, lined up to land on the A4.

It was in 1989, I lived nearby. The captain committed suicide a few years later.

Mr Stewart, 55, a father of three, was captain of a British Airways flight from Bahrain which narrowly avoided disaster as he tried to land at Heathrow in bad weather in November 1989.

Capt Stewart was accused of negligently endangering his aircraft and 262 crew and passengers after mistaking lights on the A4 Bath road for the runway he was supposed to land on. His jet flew within 'tens of feet' of the Penta Hotel, scattering residents and staff and triggering car alarms.

Never mind the blue lights in front of them, and the fact that the ILS array, approach lights and runway threshold/centreline lights are all mysteriously off to the right

I am still at a loss as to how this happened, because the localizer is usually captured 20+ miles out. It had to have been a malfunctioning NAV radio.

Again, this one makes no sense. They had ILS in the 80s too.

If it was VFR conditions there is no reasons they would require an IFR approach. It's quite normal to land at night using VFR. IFR causes a lot more work for everyone. I'm sure their TCAS was quite lively. Yes, the ILS or PAPI would have indicated a bad glide slope, but they were probably using GPS or just visual references. When I have landed at night I just use the runway lights as slope indicators. A lot of the air strips I use don't have glide slope indicators.

White lights on roads are a problem at unfamiliar runways. I hate flying at night sometimes.

Even if the airport was VFR, taxiways are clearly marked with blue lights, they don't look anything like a runway from the air.

That is true.

At least Air Canada flight figured it out prior to landing. Pilots have managed to land on taxiways before, luckily in most (all?) no other aircraft were on the taxiway.

FAA investigates Alaska jet landing on taxiway at Sea-Tac | The Seattle Times

San Francisco the night of Air Canada was doing visual according to the NTSB update.

Scheduled IFR traffic does not usually cancel IFR. Admittedly corporate flights do.


Don’t confuse VFR with a visual approach. A visual can be made under IFR.

It is common to make a raw data approach by turning the flight director’s off e.g. if you want to practice for a sim check ride. However, it is courtesy to mention this to ATC in case they are think WTF! If it all goes a bit pear shaped. Of course the other seat should be monitoring closely.

I cannot suggest any excuse however for their actions apart from probably having one very long day.

For those with an interest in aviation I recommend the free national Naval Air Museum at NAS Pensacola. Its easy to get to located on the base. Free and open to the public. You can walk around yourself but going with their tours which start about every hour are more interesting. Guided mostly by retired navy pilots they provide at lot of interesting information. This comes to mind as the wife and I are presently staying in the water front Navy Lodge across the street from museum.