Author Topic: 31 Jan: A series of go-arounds due to poor visibility at KSFO  (Read 2722 times)

Offline GeoffSM1

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 702
31 Jan: A series of go-arounds due to poor visibility at KSFO
« on: January 31, 2018, 05:51:31 PM »
Is it normal practice to allow so many aircraft to attempt to land in such adverse conditions?



Offline wiedehopf

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 149
Re: 31 Jan: A series of go-arounds due to poor visibility at KSFO
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2018, 08:21:38 AM »
it takes some time to update the ATIS and so on to go to Low visibility / CATIII operations.

additionally the ATC may have believed the fog/clouds to be temporary which i believe it was. (also maybe not quite as temporary as believed)

also with approach briefing and sequencing once the system is running and suddenly the visibility gets worse you can't use the landing time any better than letting people try the approach and inform them about the visibility best you can.

maybe they get lucky with the fog/clouds and are able to land.
else they just go around.
should be perfectly safe to do so. (downside is maybe they need to stop departures so departure control can handle the go-arounds)

also in this case the actual RVR seems to have remained above 6000 so once you break out the conditions are quite ok, that is if you break out.
(reason i say this they would have annouced them otherwise)

also you should listen to some seattle CATIII approaches where some airlines don't even take off anymore (below 600ft RVR) but others continue to land and take off down to 300ft RVR i believe. (should have made a recording i guess, was somewhere around the bad fog 8 Dec last year)

Offline VASAviation

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 490
    • REAL ATC Transcripted Videos
Re: 31 Jan: A series of go-arounds due to poor visibility at KSFO
« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2018, 05:54:55 PM »
Attached is a video I edited with our new VASAviation program which reads real ADSB data and places it onto a radar background.

I programmed it to replay about two hours and only SFO arrivals are shown on purpose. You can see traffic holding north, east and south and all the go arounds.

Thanks Geoff for your time as always! A video will come up on VASAviation :-)

Offline GeoffSM1

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 702
Re: 31 Jan: A series of go-arounds due to poor visibility at KSFO
« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2018, 01:57:25 PM »
I like that Victor. Thank you.