botched approach

Ken Ibold

Ken Ibold

Final Approach
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Ken Ibold
File this one under never again. No, I was not the pilot involved, although I heard the story from him first hand. I have altered a few of the details but not the substantive ones.

An instrument pilot, minted about 8 months ago and with a couple hundred hours total time, was flying a glass-cockpit turbo 182 into a Class C airport. His current personal minimums in that airplane include 400 feet on an ILS. The weather was forecast to be 1000 feet, and his departure airport was about 1.5 hours away. Departure was good VFR. He was flying with his wife and <2-year-old son.

As they approached the airport he found the weather was much worse than forecast, and ATIS was reporting a 500 foot ceiling. I don't recall the reported visibility. He flew the ILS, but did not have the field at 400 feet, and so he went missed. For whatever reason, his son started screaming at that point, either because the go-around attitude scared him or he wanted to land, or he could detect the pilot's anxiety. Dunno. The pilot asked for vectors for another try, and this time broke out at about 600 feet and proceeded to land. Problem was, he mistook a newly paved taxiway that ran parallel to the runway for the runway itself, and landed on the taxiway. Fortunately there were no airplanes in the way, although there was an airliner holding short that was on the perpendicular connector and was not in danger.

He blames the distraction caused by his son's angst as a primary cause, along with the fresh pavement that made the taxiway prominent in his vision.

Just a word of warning. Manage distractions. Identify AND verify before you take action. This could have been very, very bad.
 
Good post Ken. For those lowtime IR guys without families I can tell you first hand that IMC with loved ones aboard automatically creates some additional stress, Kid screaming or not. It may be different for higher time guys I dunno.
 
From what I"m told, a front seat passenger digging her fingernails into your thigh on the missed and not letting go for about 15 minutes can be kind of distracting, too ;)

Fly safe!

David
 
...or (say), a kid standing up to pee in a bottle on short final...
 
AdamZ said:
Good post Ken. For those lowtime IR guys without families I can tell you first hand that IMC with loved ones aboard automatically creates some additional stress, Kid screaming or not. It may be different for higher time guys I dunno.
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I notice no additional stress in those circumstances. Mainly because I apply the same rigorous caution when I am alone in IMC to save my hide as I do when I have pax. I fly no less safe when my family is not on board.
 
smigaldi said:
I notice no additional stress in those circumstances. Mainly because I apply the same rigorous caution when I am alone in IMC to save my hide as I do when I have pax. I fly no less safe when my family is not on board.
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Oh... I thought you were going to say that you were screaming louder than the kid ever could, and so couldn't hear him/her. -Skip :rofl:
 
Don't forget to brief your approach, too, including the runway and lighting that you expect to see when you break out.

A guy I knew at flight school was safety piloting for a rather stubborn pilot on his way to his CFII checkride. They were meeting the DE at an airport in Florida (I forget which one). They were in a 2003 Seminole with dual Garmin 430s that they each had close to 200 hours in. They were vectored to the ILS in the midst of a medium overcast. They broke out around 1000AGL, at which point the pilot flying said he was visual, chopped the power, and for some reason started reprogramming the GPS, wherein he also switched the VOR heads to GPS mode, thus losing his glideslope and azmuth data. He proceded to land at the first airport he saw in front him (despite his safety pilot's continued warning to break of the approach) and was met by the Air Force Base's security patrol before the plane even stopped rolling.

He failed to brief the approach fully, so he didn't realize that he was on a steeper glideslope than usual, so the 10,000+ foot runway with ALSF-3 and a 6-box VASI he saw was actually McDill AFB, not the 4,800foot runway with REIL and nothing else that he should have seen at the civilian airport. Granted the runways were only a few miles apart and oriented on almost the same heading, 35 vs 36, but that's still no excuse.

The guy in the right seat knew something was wrong, but didn't get his point across. That was a long night for those two.

GPS is only as good as the person that reads it, and high time in the plane is still no substitute for a good approach brief. And if you're not intimately familiar with the airport and you have a precision approach system available to your runway...why not use it?

Teller
 
kinda like the mesaba crew that landed at the AF base in Rapid City a couple years ago
 
tonycondon said:
kinda like the mesaba crew that landed at the AF base in Rapid City a couple years ago
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A Rio Airlines (regional in Texas) landed at Goodfellow AFB when I was stationed there. The runway to San Angelo and Goodfellow were very closely aligned and only a few miles apart. Problem really was that the runways at Goodfellow were closed. The end of the runway was used by the GoodYear Tire corp to test tires and the middle part of the runway was used as a car park for the base exchange. The plane managed to stop much to the wonderment of shoppers and had to be towed away. Ooopps. Goodfellow AFB is not a base the took kindly to uninvited visitors.
 
smigaldi said:
I notice no additional stress in those circumstances. Mainly because I apply the same rigorous caution when I am alone in IMC to save my hide as I do when I have pax. I fly no less safe when my family is not on board.
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Ok let me put it this way. I am no less cautious either. I just feel there is more to loose if I F up.
 
Could be worse -- there used to be a note in the A/FD entry for Detroit Metro about the fact that the street lights on Telegraph Road along the north edge of the airport make it look more like a runway than the runway it paralleled.
 
What kind of approach was that? I guess it was ILS base on minimums? If so, runway must have approach lighting system which should be turned on if airport was IFR. So I don't understand how can you land on taxiway in this case?:dunno:
 
sdflyer said:
What kind of approach was that? I guess it was ILS base on minimums? If so, runway must have approach lighting system which should be turned on if airport was IFR. So I don't understand how can you land on taxiway in this case?:dunno:
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I surmise that when he broke out well above the ILS minimum he transitioned to visual and sort of forgot everything else.

Edit: I just looked up the airport diagram, and it even says: "CAUTION: Pilots are cautioned not to mistake taxiway L for Rwy 9L/27R or 9R/27L."
 
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I haven't noticed any additional stress yet. The first two approaches in actual I did without a CFII were with my two youngest kids. Neither was particularly low or near minimums though. I've gone lower and far closer to minimums since, but so far only solo.

I'm not going to get too risky with or without passengers. If I feel comfortable flying the approach then adding passengers doesn't change that for me. Having an audio panel with pilot isolation helps. But that's true for VFR as well as IFR. When I need to cut passengers out to pay attention to ATC or cut down on distractions I tell my passengers about it and isolate my audio from them. The kids usually prefer that so they don't have to listen to ATC.
 
I had the same thoughts about lights. Weren't edge lights or REILs on? You don't state the airport so we don't know how it was equipped, whether it was towered or non-towered nor what kind of approach he was doing.

I'm curious about those things. My curiosity here isn't for criticism nearly than for what he was seeing and why. I wonder what kind of runway surface it was, whether there are wide centerline stripes or they may be faded away, pilot controlled lighting, etc. The night operations section in CFI technical subject areas has me thinking about those things and what a student or certificated pilot may potentially see or not see.
 
Teller1900 said:
he didn't realize that he was on a steeper glideslope than usual, so the 10,000+ foot runway with ALSF-3 and a 6-box VASI he saw was actually McDill AFB, not the 4,800foot runway with REIL and nothing else that he should have seen at the civilian airport. Granted the runways were only a few miles apart and oriented on almost the same heading, 35 vs 36, but that's still no excuse.


Teller
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Funny you mention that. We were on final to MacDill one hazy afternoon. Approach vectored us around to the north and was unable to accomodate the ILS due to traffic at Tampa Intl. The controller asked us if we had the field in sight and the co-pilot stated he did. He made that radio call before the A/C or I could jump in and say that we did not. He had mistaken that 4800' for the 10k at MacDill. Luckily we did get the correct runway in sight before we had to embarass ourselves by admitting the mistake to approach. Being in low vis and unfamiliar skys can be bad. The Co got a CRM lesson after we landed.
 
I overheard Oceana NAS tower tell a guy one time (when viz was around 1-1/2 on the field) "you see that truck in front of you?...follow it to the ramp, you just landed on the taxiway..."
 
About five years ago, an MD-80 headed for Steamboat Springs, Colorado had mistaken this:
KCAG: 7-25: 5600X100

For this:
KHDN: 10-28: 10000X150

Fortunately, the runway was clear of ice for the landing given it was winter time. And, also fortunate for the pilot... it was winter time so they could strip down to minimum weight and get it off the ground again!
 
KennyFlys said:
I had the same thoughts about lights. Weren't edge lights or REILs on? You don't state the airport so we don't know how it was equipped, whether it was towered or non-towered nor what kind of approach he was doing.

I'm curious about those things. My curiosity here isn't for criticism nearly than for what he was seeing and why. I wonder what kind of runway surface it was, whether there are wide centerline stripes or they may be faded away, pilot controlled lighting, etc. The night operations section in CFI technical subject areas has me thinking about those things and what a student or certificated pilot may potentially see or not see.
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As I mentioned in the original post, it was an ILS into a Class C airport, so that should give you an indication of how it was equipped. A complicating factor is that I believe it may have been his first trip into an airport with parallel runways. For a visual on it, go to Google Earth and look at 26*40.55.57N and 80*06.27.99W. The airport is Palm Beach International, KPBI.
 
Yikes... Two things, though:

1) Know where the pilot isolate button is (on that bird, it'd be in between the big screens and near the bottom, just above the volume/squelch button). This also is leading me to think that maybe the isolate feature should be a required personal minimum on any bird that I fly IFR in the future. Both club planes that I fly IFR currently do have it.

2) This is also why, IMNSHO, personal minimums for ceiling and vis have no place with IFR. If you can't fly every approach the airplane is capable of down to the *published* minimums, you shouldn't be flying IFR. If the weather is crappy, it seems to be a lot more unpredictable than "is it gonna stay VFR or not" type weather. I dunno how many times the weather has been lower than forecast at the destination when I'm IFR, but it's a significant percentage of the time. If you can't fly an ILS down to 200 feet, maybe you should get with an instructor and get proficient enough to do so before you take your family flying in actual IMC. (There, I said it.) At the very least, you should have enough fuel (as well as bladder endurance for everyone aboard) to fly to severe clear.

A good example of this was my flight to the glide-a-thon: Forecast was for around a 1000-foot overcast. Ames had a 100-foot overcast when we got there. I flew the approach, missed, and diverted to DSM. In the 15 minutes between the miss and completing the approach into DSM, the weather there went from 10SM OVC090 SCT005 to 5SM BKN005 to 1SM OVC001. Someone's higher personal minimums would have been fine to start, but they'd have had to complete that approach at the end or fly a long way to get back to somewhere where they'd have had 1000-foot ceilings.

This is not to say personal minimums aren't compatible with IFR - For instance, mine are to have dual VOR's and DME* at a minimum (and I think a pilot isolate switch now as well) and enough fuel to fly to good weather if necessary. I just don't think ceiling/vis mins on an approach are a good idea. If you can't fly to published minimums, stick to VFR or get with a CFII until you can.

* = independent DME. We have one bird with DME that's stuck to nav1, which precludes flying two of the three ILS approaches at the home drome, and the one you can fly has the highest minimums. I don't fly this bird IFR for this and other reasons...
 
Ken Ibold said:
As I mentioned in the original post, it was an ILS into a Class C airport, so that should give you an indication of how it was equipped. A complicating factor is that I believe it may have been his first trip into an airport with parallel runways. For a visual on it, go to Google Earth and look at 26*40.55.57N and 80*06.27.99W. The airport is Palm Beach International, KPBI.
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Okay, I'll shut up now. :) I missed those pieces of information when I read through.

Last night, I went to the ER for what turned out to be gall stones. Twelve hours later, I'm still feeling the effects of the good stuff... morphine! :D It sure is a LOT better than the pain I went in with.

I'll look at the plates for it. I see REILs for only 27R. If that was the approach, I'd think they would have been a give away when breaking out at 600 on the glide slope. If it were 9R, I'd want to see at least a few white lights on the edge of each side. HIRL or MIRL should show up well enough.

I guess this would be a good lesson why "runway environment" should not be just a picture of asphalt or concrete. But rather, look for some white lights and/or white runway markings to go with it. When I fly over an airport, sometimes the blue taxi lights stand out more than the white runway lights.

Regardless, I'm just glad he got down safe and there were no incidents on landing.
 
tonycondon said:
kinda like the mesaba crew that landed at the AF base in Rapid City a couple years ago
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Having just been there a few weeks ago at night, I can see how that could happen. It's somewhat of an ideal location for that sort of thing. The airport is not easy to make out and everything on the ground just is a sea of lights.

A friend of mine landed accidentally landed at Southern California Logistics a few years ago (before I had my license) instead of Apple Valley, which is right around the corner. The 15,000' runway didn't impress him and we didn't notice anything. Got out of the plane and started wondering why we were sitting right next to unpainted 747-400s. Left again and made a position report on the frequency painted onto the runway. Victorville tower came on and asked us who we were; apparently he never saw us :eek:
 
The only time I ever forgot to put the gear down was when my then 22 mo old "have to go pottie" approaching the DFW metroplex. Charts were buried back in the Mooney's rear compartment, except for DFWs.

The controller gave me a heading, told me he'd let me know which of the FOUR runways it'd be, asked for 170 knots. When I was cleared, it was for 17L, with a 747 in trail.

170 knots it was, out we popped at ~250 agl, but I couldn't get it slowed down. Nose up, big slip, 3000 feet down the runway, finally realized the big silver gear handle wasn't there (Turbo M20F), put 'em out, touched in the last 3000 feet, taxied off the second to the last high speed taxiway, and was THANKED by the controller.

I was covered with sweat.
 
Holy Sh*t Batman ! I bet that was a learning experience...
 
bbchien said:
Nose up, big slip, 3000 feet down the runway, finally realized the big silver gear handle wasn't there (Turbo M20F), put 'em out, touched in the last 3000 feet, taxied off the second to the last high speed taxiway, and was THANKED by the controller.

I was covered with sweat.
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Sounds like most landings at Oshkosh or Lakeland!

:)
 
Ron Levy said:
Could be worse -- there used to be a note in the A/FD entry for Detroit Metro about the fact that the street lights on Telegraph Road along the north edge of the airport make it look more like a runway than the runway it paralleled.
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There are a bunch of those. Colorado Springs has the interstate which looks brighter and bigger at night than the runway. Dulles has a phantom center runway which is the brightly lit road running down from the rental car area. I haven't ever landed there at night, but I imagine the 8 lanes or whatever of the NJT look pretty confusing to the parallel runways at EWR.
 
Ranchero BLVD is about 15 degrees off the rwy heading at North Las Vegas (VGT), but still a whole lot easier to find (and try to follow on downwind) at night.
 
All the above are good reasons to ask for an approach when flying to an unfamiliar airport at night no matter how severe clear it is.
 
Lance F said:
All the above are good reasons to ask for an approach when flying to an unfamiliar airport at night no matter how severe clear it is.
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When I flew back to GVL on Saturday I was under VFR. But when the field wasn't sticking out for me, I was planning to continue south a few miles and intercept the localizer. I finally saw it from the right angle and the REIL's showed up.

There's no question... even if you never plan to fly in the soup, an instrument rating with continued proficiency will make you a safer VFR pilot.
 
you guys got to get out of the city.

when the 7 watt nightlight bulbs are the only lights for miles the airport is really easy to see. as long as you arent approaching from an angle in which the trees block them all out. ;)
 
There's no question... even if you never plan to fly in the soup, an instrument rating with continued proficiency will make you a safer VFR pilot.
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Especially at night. Even VFR at night, I use IFR procedures. Obstacle departure procedure, anyone? You don't need to go out West to find terrain that'll gitcha either... KOVS is a prime example of an airport that could be very dangerous to a VFR pilot at night. I'm glad we have the freedom to fly VFR at night, but I can see why most countries require additional training for night flying or simply don't allow night VFR at all.
 
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