Phoenix Approach, possible controller error, I have a number for you to call, advise when ready to copy.

flyingron

flyingron

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Blancolirio on YouTube had a great review of that Incident. I'm sure the controller was pulled and sent for additional training.
 
I'm not ATC, but it seems bad policy to intentionally place two aircraft on a potential collision course dependent on future additional instruction to avoid the collision. As happened in this situation, what happens when the controller gets distracted, frequency gets busy, an aircraft goes NORDO, etc. There have been a couple of collisions recently of aircraft on merging base to finals where an aircraft overshot its final course and hit the other.
 
midwestpa24 said:
I'm not ATC, but it seems bad policy to intentionally place two aircraft on a potential collision course dependent on future additional instruction to avoid the collision. As happened in this situation, what happens when the controller gets distracted, frequency gets busy, an aircraft goes NORDO, etc. There have been a couple of collisions recently of aircraft on merging base to finals where an aircraft overshot its final course and hit the other.
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Happens hundred to thousand times a day.
 
Mikey52 said:
Happens hundred to thousand times a day.
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Not in this way they’re not. This controller 1) never ensured approved separation (1000 / 3) and 2) didn’t have the aircraft established on a 30 degree or less intercept after having approved separation… that crappy last second vector doesn’t count.

Finally, the audio was trimmed so not sure if DAL1070 reported field in sight before the VA clearance. She forced that on him for a reason. Once both are cleared for VAs in this situation (parallels), visual sep is now on the pilots. Problem is, she lost approved radar sep long before she tried that last second VA nonsense.
 
Velocity173 said:
Not in this way they’re not. This controller 1) never ensured approved separation (1000 / 3) and 2) didn’t have the aircraft established on a 30 degree or less intercept after having approved separation… that crappy last second vector doesn’t count.

Finally, the audio was trimmed so not sure if DAL1070 reported field in sight before the VA clearance. She forced that on him for a reason. Once both are cleared for VAs in this situation (parallels), visual sep is now on the pilots. Problem is, she lost approved radar sep long before she tried that last second VA nonsense.
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I think they're saying "seems bad policy to intentionally place two aircraft on a potential collision course dependent on future additional instruction" happens hundreds of times a day, which is true and totally safe.

Unless it's different at P50, only one A/C is required to be on the VA approach to discontinue other forms of sep. You're right that the A/C must have approved separation prior to and until the A/C is established on a heading that's =/< 30 degrees from the RWY. That last second vector SHOULD have been a traffic alert to one or both A/C, but DAL1070 did report the field insight despite the controller never pointing the field out to them. Some audio is cut but it's blatantly obvious that the controller working was inexcusably negligent.
 
Shift8 said:
I think they're saying "seems bad policy to intentionally place two aircraft on a potential collision course dependent on future additional instruction" happens hundreds of times a day, which is true and totally safe.

Unless it's different at P50, only one A/C is required to be on the VA approach to discontinue other forms of sep. You're right that the A/C must have approved separation prior to and until the A/C is established on a heading that's =/< 30 degrees from the RWY. That last second vector SHOULD have been a traffic alert to one or both A/C, but DAL1070 did report the field insight despite the controller never pointing the field out to them. Some audio is cut but it's blatantly obvious that the controller working was inexcusably negligent.
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I was assuming parallels between 2,500 - 4300 ft. But yeah, if it’s over 4,300 then only one needs the VA clearance to discontinue radar sep. I didn’t catch where 1070 reported field in sight though. Only after the clearance was issued.
 
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Velocity173 said:
Not in this way they’re not. This controller 1) never ensured approved separation (1000 / 3) and 2) didn’t have the aircraft established on a 30 degree or less intercept after having approved separation… that crappy last second vector doesn’t count.

Finally, the audio was trimmed so not sure if DAL1070 reported field in sight before the VA clearance. She forced that on him for a reason. Once both are cleared for VAs in this situation (parallels), visual sep is now on the pilots. Problem is, she lost approved radar sep long before she tried that last second VA nonsense.
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Yup.

7−2−1. VISUAL SEPARATION
Visual separation may be applied when other approved separation is assured before and after the application of
visual separation. To ensure that other separation will exist, consider aircraft performance, wake turbulence,
closure rate, routes of flight, known weather conditions, and aircraft position. Weather conditions must allow
the aircraft to remain within sight until other separation exists. Visual separation is not authorized when the lead
aircraft is a super.
 
Last time I went into PHX, they gave us an at or above speed that reduced separation from our interval to <2 miles, dumped us loose on final off a dogleg vector that only made the problem worse, and then approved S turns north over the city. I did one good one, opened up enough to allow the (thankfully fast) SWA 73 to land and exit by the time we were about to flare. Didn't help that their -700 approach speed was probably 20 knots slower than out -900ER fully loaded speed. Some Navy CV-1 avoiding wave off survival instinct of mine kicked in at some point and we made it happen on our own, but that controller was over his skis that day.
 
flyingron said:

'They Came Within 400 Feet Over Phoenix': How Delta And United Pilots Averted Disaster After ATC Error - View from the Wing

On Saturday morning, Delta Air Lines flight 1070 from Detroit and United Airlines flight 1724 from San Francisco came perilously close to colliding above Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Despite bad air traffic control instructions, the aircrafts’ onboard Traffic Collision Avoidance...
viewfromthewing.com viewfromthewing.com
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Am I an idiot or is Gary very confused?

"You’ve gotta give credit to TCAS for being awesome. It’s always impressive how many checks are in place to ensure that aviation is safe, and ultimately us humans just can’t compete with automation when it comes to catching every possible catastrophe.

I agree with this. The Boeing 737 MAX MCAS issues were a problem because the plane was meant to basically fly itself, even with Lion Air pilots, and didn’t live up to that standard. U.S. airline pilots likely wouldn’t have had the same runaway MCAS issues, and U.S. airlines wouldn’t have had the same issues with lack of angle of attack disagree indicators, or hopefully with undocumented maintenence issues either. Our standards in aviation have gotten incredibly high."

How did we go from a near MAC rescued by TCAS to MCAS?
 
morleyz said:
Am I an idiot or is Gary very confused?


How did we go from a near MAC rescued by TCAS to MCAS?
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I have no idea why he started ranting about MCAS in response to TCAS when MCAS (whether present or not) is irrelevant to this. It would be like bringing up Airbus FBW issues here.

He's wrong about MCAS. The original MCAS design was wrong and it was a matter of time before we had crashes and I don't agree that it wouldn't have happened to a US based crew if you actually go down the rathole of all the chain of events that hit LIonAir.
 
flyingron said:
He's wrong about MCAS. The original MCAS design was wrong and it was a matter of time before we had crashes and I don't agree that it wouldn't have happened to a US based crew if you actually go down the rathole of all the chain of events that hit LIonAir.
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LionAir was the one where the Captain flew the airplane fine, keeping it in-trim, through 21 MCAS activations. It wasn't until he passed control the to F/O that the uncorrected MCAS activations resulted in a full nose-down stab.
 
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