Thank you for that clear explanation. So if I'm IFR in the US, I'm already within a TAA, and I hear "cleared for the approach" with no other instructions attached, then I can immediately descend below my previously-assigned altitude to the appropriate TAA altitude?
And, among other rule changes, that accident caused the rule to maintain your last assigned altitude until on a published route or segment.
"cleared to land" really means "when you cross the threshold, I promise all the separation requirements will be met."
If you really want some excitement, watch new pilots' faces when they see that the separation requirements don't necessarily mean that the runway will be CLEAR as you're landing. Under the right circumstances, there could be plane rolling out 3001ft ahead of you.
Then, of course, there's Oshkosh where they keep the tower warm by setting fire to the FAA order on Air Traffic Control
There was a time in the US it wasn’t that way. The rule was the Controller couldn’t give the Landing Clearance until the preceding aircraft crossed the Landing Threshold
I knew it was sometime between 81 and 02. Now I know it was 81 and 96
by "crossed the line," I'm guessing you are referring to clearing the runway? If so, that would make sense because same runway separation isn't applicable for a turbine powered aircraft, the runway has to be clear (not past the hold short lines, though, but the plane has to be off the runway and still moving).
I wonder why the U.S. changed that when other countries didn't.
Then, there was PADL.
Yep, I thought the NTSB had its head way up the dark place.
Whell, sure ATC didn't live up to the expectations that they should act like a third crewmember and save the crew from their mistakes. That expectation comes from TWA 514, but really, even before then when pilots were supposed to know where they were all the time and operate accordingly the onus is on the crew. TWA 514 had one officer who seemed to know, but got overruled by the two with their hands on the flight controls. Admittedly, the chart was misleading for a pilot who wasn't a "student of the game"—hence all the fallout afterward. In this case, though, the chart has everything you could hope for as a pilot. So, what I wonder is, "Did the captain have a copy in front of him?" The first officer was offline and not apparently in the loop confirming altitude clearances with the captain and may have clipped the only chart to his control yoke. Maybe. IDK. The bottom line is ATC's function is to prevent pilots from going where they want, nice as they are as regular people. But if they make a bad enough mistake they will KILL you. Fly like it.
All other inattentions, bad training, lack of "fleck" aside, had Round Hill intersection been in the profile view as mandated by inter-agency charting specifications at the time, the accident would not have happened. Period.
As in the Piper they planted on the mountain a few hundred feet from JLI VOR.
This one was kinda like the Medford one. In order to comply with the rules for doing the Approach, the pilots would have to climb once getting established on the published procedure. In this case when entering the TAA. At Medford as I recall, it was joining a DME Arc. That don’t follow the logic check. Pilot gotta go whoa, this ain’t makin NO sense. I’m not going to Monday morning quarterback what should have been probable cause and what should have been contributing.
If it had been on the profile it certainly wouldn’t have been 1800. Probably 3700. I’ll entertain arguments for maybe 3000 or 3400, but my money is on 3700.
Why? The MEA on the plan view was 1800'?
It’s not an MEA, but generically speaking, yeah, call it MEA. The segment altitude is 1800. But what you depicted showed the altitude AT Round Hill as 1800. You can look at thousands of Approach’s where you descend to a lower altitude after crossing the Fix at it’s Minimum Altitude. To illustrate further, look at Procedure Turns. There is the ‘high station’ altitude. The Minimum Altitude until established inbound. And then the altitude you can descend to after that. I’d agree that if Round Hill had been charted on the Profile View and depicted correctly, it likely would have eliminated the confusion in the cockpit.Why? The MEA on the plan view was 1800'?
Why? The MEA on the plan view was 1800'?
Why? The MEA on the plan view was 1800'?
That wasn't required in 1974. The three initial segments could have remained different and the lowest of the three shown at Round Hill in the profile. If 1,800 wasn't good after Round Hill then an intermediate step-down fix would have been required. But the crash occurred a few miles prior to Round Hill, and 1,800 was good after Round Hill, at least as to DME. I don't know about the fix displacement area.
So I think you're saying Round Hill should have been an IF (which I don't remember being charted in those days), correct? That's what you mean by saying it was missing, since it is along the route from the IAFs. All that aside, once radar released them for the approach they ought to have seen the MDAs for the two initial approaches segments they were within on the plan view. I don't think they even looked.
I was involved in the investigation and saw the FAA’s TERPS maps, Round Hill was the IF and you’re correct, IFs weren’t charted with “IF” until many years later. One of the crew members saw the initial segments and mentioned it. But, he was overruled. All of them, and me, had received lousy training by TWA’s reg instructor about when you can descend. I knew he was wrong and cited the ILS at KONT to him two years earlier. My concerns fell on deaf ears. I had to testify about that after the crash.
My only connection was my trip to Key West was scrubbed at the last minute due to the weather concerns. The trip back from the airport usually took 55 minutes, but was about three hours that day. The next morning I read about the crash. Followed the investigation closely afterward. There were a lot of discussions around the airfield between professional pilots during that time. Not everybody had the same opinion as to who to blame.
We'll have to agree to disagree. I don't know what FMSs you've flown behind, but none of the ones I use "jerks" the plane anywhere. If anything, they are annoyingly smooth (at least laterally). The know where you are, where you want to go, what the winds are and when to start the turn to exactly roll out on the next course.
At TWA there was no training, ground school, or otherwise, on U.S. MSAs, since they aren't operational altitudes. Perhaps in international ground school, I don't recall.
On a Cardinal? I checked his profile (I should have done it before): drgwentzel | Pilots of America My thinking now is he wasn't flying a jet @ 3 miles/minute less than one minute from station passage (AGNSS is over TEB VOR, btw).
Yes, that's where I agree to disagree. The pilot may prefer not to use automation for no reason at all, imo. When to begin the turn is a matter of technique and we don't know when he actually did. To do it in one continuous standard rate turn manually would be more luck than skill, so taking a reasonable first cut seems like a conservative attempt to avoid overshooting to me. Now, if he started the turn at 5 miles where he was cleared for the approach at Cardinal speeds I would be forced to agree to agree with you.
And it may be all well and good in this instance. Obviously nobody have him a number to call (or maybe they did and that's why he's not posting), so it worked out. What concerned me the most was this statement to the pilot he was flying with:Yes, that's where I agree to disagree. The pilot may prefer not to use automation for no reason at all, imo. When to begin the turn is a matter of technique and we don't know when he actually did. To do it in one continuous standard rate turn manually would be more luck than skill, so taking a reasonable first cut seems like a conservative attempt to avoid overshooting to me. Now, if he started the turn at 5 miles where he was cleared for the approach at Cardinal speeds I would be forced to agree to agree with you.
I don't agree with that.
