Juan and @VASAviation are my number 1 sources for accurate aviation information. Thank you BOTH for the great work and please keep it up. I (and on behalf of everyone else) really really love it.
I work this kind of traffic at a busy approach control/TRACON every day. She got distracted by UPS and forgot about the DAL. It’s something we teach to trainees all the time: “Aircraft on the base are your #1 priority.” You work your scan (just like an IFR instrument scan) starting from the airport outwards. It is an obvious panic move when you realize you are late for a turn to final that you try and jam the base leg in there. As soon as you get the readback of the 30 degree heading these aircraft are now separated. However, by the time she realizes what was happening, it was too late to save this situation. Best move is the vector DAL on a southwest heading to pass behind (get divergence) and give UAL an immediate climb. Realizing this and doing it quickly is one of the hardest things in ATC. It’s very hard to realize in a split second that you screwed up, and there’s no way to fix the situation without a double go around.
@@aa-xh2cg Thank you for this professional advice. I’m gonna ask you as I asked in a general comment. Would a software change for ATC radar help ID these problems just like TCAS alerts flight crews?
A clear-headed explanation, offered without the blamey rhetoric and hyperbole offered by a lot of people commenting. Juan understands human performance limitations and promotes learning from errors, rather than finger pointing.
I experienced DEI with the FAA in the 70's. Then, the federal "150 Program" gave an additional a year of training (ungraded practice) to minorities and women. White males had to pass the first time over and over in the various phases of Air Traffic Control training, versus the ungraded practice the DEI hires at the time were afforded. This was 1978. Another great example of my "White Privilege."
@@shauny2285 - If that comment is referencing the DHL/Bashkarian accident, it’s a bit more complicated. At the time TCAS was still relatively new. The ICAO guidance that existed at the time essentially said in the event of a conflict between TCAS and controller instructions, do what you think is safest. DHL’s procedures said follow TCAS, Bashkarian’s said follow ATC. Obviously this didn’t work, so the guidance was then changed to what it is today: Comply with the RA, ignore the controller’s instructions. Another outgrowth of this was the development of TCAS II version 7.1, which has significantly imp ability to command a reversal (to go from commanding a descent to a climb or vice-versa). Along with this, the recommended verbiage for crews was changed from “TCAS Climb” (or descent) to amore generic, “TCAS RA,” rather than “TCAS CLIMB [DESCENT).
My TH-cam autoplayed like 9 mentour pilot disaster videos in a row today while I was working and I think 8 of them were either directly caused or exacerbated by an unstable approach. Including a successful avoidance of disaster by a 777 that did a 3rd go-around despite bare minimum fuel rather than continuing a less than ideal approach.
Thank you for the detailed breakdown! I follow many YT folks who do live videos where it's common for viewers to "super chat" comments. I always feel bad I can't "thank you" live like I do with them...but hopefully this helps encourage you to continue making this type of content. I ALWAYS look forward to your videos regarding any aviation incident since you focus on the facts and not the f**kery.
It wasn’t just the UPS plane that messed up her timing. The interaction with Key Lime took 36 seconds with all of the plan-to-follow discussion. The interaction with UPS and SWA took 44 seconds. I think that they Both affected the controller’s perception of time passing since beginning the base.
She definitely needed to be more concise with her communication, and should have denied a runway change for the UPS plane IMO. The problem was she didn’t realize she had gotten behind in her communication with the aircrafts
Sort of, but I think the issue is her interactions with those two should have taken zero time. Let them rot a few seconds while you handle the important stuff.
Long story short, atc lost situational awareness. It happens to the best of us. Hopefully, this was a wake up call to get her priorities straight, and if it wasn’t, she needs to removed from duty for retraining. Some people aren’t cut out for certain jobs, but we can’t make any assumptions based on this single event.
TCAS was paid for in blood and so were the rules on how to use it. Your channel does it's part in all of this to help keep everyone flying safe. Thank you.❤
As a former military and FAA controller, I appreciate the clear, concise and factual explanation. As soon as you showed the traffic situation, my gut tightened... I was not aware of this incident, but surely recognized the ingredients in the brewing stew.
I worked final at GTG for 29 years. Can't see anything wrong with just having UAL land long, and get Delta slow her down a bit and slip in behind. We're still miles from the tarmac there, no panic. Cook through that last high speed turnoff, and Bob's your uncle.
Same here. I saw the immediate conflict on the scope. This has happened before at PHX. The "turn to 170 degrees" for the Airbus 330 was shaving it close and I heard the Delta pilot question the 170 heading to confirm. She affirmed it. The UPS was a distraction because he wanted a runway change. Cringe.
I feel like the ATC was about to give Delta the turn, but when the UPS threw in the "runway change" request that took her a moment to get situated and it messed up the timing just enough to cause the conflict. In hindsight (which we all know is perfect) she should have probably said "UPS standby, Delta turn left heading 100 to intercept" or however the cadence should have been.
Not an atc but I feel as soon as the UPS threw in the distraction her response should have been “ UPS standby , delta turn left …..” Delta should have been the priority
Ups standby is a waste of time. Ups has to standby until the controller responds. She should of just went to delta, however, she should of went to delta two transmissions earlier
@ Sorry, David. That's not how radio protocol works. The FAA Aeronautical Information Manual dictates radio procedures between ATC and pilots. Chapter 3 specifically covers the explicit meaning of the "standby" instruction as it relates to entering and maneuvering within controlled airspace around an airport.
In watching Juan’s videos over the years, I’m left amazed at the level of responsibility air traffic controllers have , every minute, of every shift. There is no forgiveness. And it is made worse due to the on-going man-power shortage in the ATC profession. The system, as designed, is at its capacity.
I'd never want to take on that responsibility, myself. One inadvertent blink could be disastrous. Especially at an airport as busy as Sky Harbor (or busier).
ATC and Pilot. 2 jobs that no amount of money could get me to do. Way too much stress. The people that do it day in and day out are amazing. My hats off to you.
Thank you humbly. It's not stress if you're well trained and you like it. It can be extremely satisfying, especially when it's busy or in adverse weather. Note: I worked tower and ground, not radar (approach) but we were one group. Loved every day or night on the job.
Juan…. As a retired controller from Chicago who spent a good part of my 30 years training other controllers I would like to have you rethink where the situation went bad. We often teach priority of duties, that is the situational awareness to always know what the most important thing happening in your airspace at anytime. The traffic should have been called when she gave the turn to 170. Then because she made that turn the turn to final was her highest priority. Neither the Key Lime nor the UPS was a priority at that moment. The turn to 170 should have included a traffic call and if possible a clearance to maintain visual. This should have been followed immediately to a call to United for the same thing. Following that then another call to United to do a visual approach to allow him to maneuver. Then and only then should she have answered Key Lime.
In the US we're taught not to intercept final unless/until we receive clearance to do so. In the Airbus, when we "extend the line" to create the intercept in the MCDU (FMS), procedurally we disarm the NAV so it does NOT intercept before we've received the clearance. In many other countries the guidance is opposite. In Paris, for example, our guidance is, "When on a vector of less than 70 degrees to the final approach course, pilots are expected to automatically join final unless they have been given explicit instructions to cross runway centerline." That still wouldn't have helped with a 90-degree vector, but in my opinion, the default guidance (to just automatically join final) in France is safer than ours in the US. I think we should change to similar guidance in the US.
European controller (retired). Where I worked nobody was expected to do anything automatically. Just follow procedures e.g. do not intercept the localiser unless instructed to "intercept the localiser". Simple, standard, safe. And of course, if anyone feels doubt could arise then take that away with additional info.
@@EHAMZTZXYeah, it varies by location. Many locations have procedures directing pilots to join the final on their own if they don't receive the clearance in time. These are typically locations with parallel approaches or other threats that would present if the final approach course was flown through, such as terrain or traffic from nearby airports. In the absence of that procedure, controllers should separate traffic on parallel approaches with both vertical and in-trail spacing, so if the clearance to intercept is not issued there's not an immediate conflict. I still think that the direction to have pilots automatically intercept in the case of lost comm, frequency congestion or forgotten clearance is the safest fallback for parallel approaches.
I know it's a note on the approach plates for CDG, but I think Paris is the exception rather than the rule, and part of the reason is them knocking down to one controller at night who handles practically everything (way too much IMHO).
@ Yeah, it definitely varies by location. As I said above, where this direction is in place are typically locations with parallel approaches or other threats that would present if the final approach course was flown through, such as terrain or traffic from nearby airports. I still think it would be a good fallback policy at any airport with parallel approaches.
Witness similar at Birmingham UK, mirror image of this several years ago. One aircraft straight in and another passed underneath from a right base, both set up for approach. Cavok blue sky. Right base traffic orbited around to reposition. Closest i ever saw 2 airliners.
Great analysis, Juan. As an active ATC in Europe (also an OJTI), I noticed the not very strict adherence to TCAS RA procedures by both the crews and the ATC. We insist a lot on following exactly the right course of actions and the use of standard phraseology. A TCAS RA reported by a crew should be automatically followed by a “ROGER” and nothing else by the TCA. And then wait for a “CLEAR OF CONFLICT” before anymore instructions are given to that crew. If the “CLEAR OF CONFLICT” is not reported by the crew and they request or say any other thing, the ATC should reply with just a “CONFIRM CLEAR OF CONFLICT” before anymore instructions are transmitted. Once again, thanks to you, to Victor and to the holy-best-invention-in-aviation-ever, Saint TCAS.
I agree with the above. In Europe, as pilots, we get hammered in the sims to use correct phraseology in this case "TCAS RA" Both the Delta and United crew did not adhere to this standard, and this could potentially have caused unnecessary confusion if they had operated outside the US airspace. Apart from that, the rest was well executed.
@@filipbigun5834 Yup. Dreadful RT but I think that's not uncommon. The controller then issued instructions without any mention of "clear of conflict" from either aircraft.
TCAS worked and thankfully all involved followed TCAS ! The controller got behind and failed to work from the airport out. Fatigue? Yeah! Probably. I am retired for over ten years now and I am STILL Fatigued! I didn't even work the finals, which are as difficult and challenging as any sector can be. I got to go on a familiarization flight in the FAA's old B727, I think it was hull # 3, and they demonstrated TCAS to us flying over BRIJJ at KSFO during the morning arrival rush. It was quite impressive! Of course most of us controllers hated the concept. Thank you Juan for another very important report!
The controller clearly got distracted and screwed up, but she did a great job recovering. We all screw up. Hope she didn't get too much grief over this.
She did not, she pestered the crews of the airplanes following the RA with questions and instructions that were not important at the moment. She didn't seem to understand what was going on. She seemed annoyed at the RA more than anything.
So, as I'm out here driving, the ATC is my green traffic light, but the TCAS is the brake lights on the car in front of me. I think I'll follow the TCAS. Thanks for a great breakdown.
We’re all human and make mistakes. Unfortunately those mistakes in the ATC realm are very unforgiving. I’ve had controllers (attempt to) pass me off to tower without issuing an approach clearance and have had them forget to pass me off to tower. It happens. This video proves pilot situational awareness is critical especially in the terminal area.
Superb explanation. We're lucky to have TCAS as an air partner. Without, I recall PSA 182 in '78 or AM 498 in '86. No doubt the technology has saved countless lives.
@@enriqueantonioviterodrigue6402 That Air Mexico tried to land at Chino then missed the power lines over the 71 fwy. low to LAX - I follows it on a photo flight and saw the mushroom cloud in Cerritos. What a mess.
Both were devastating accidents...And clearly shows' and showed a ture need for a T C A S system... Thank goodness the cool demeanor of the pilots and control to function and make good and clear appropriate calls to continue as they respond to R A and resequence those aircraft...
Great review Juan especially focusing on pilot actions rather than the controller’s mistake. Applaud the controller for not getting flustered and immediately offering resequence.
Thankfully, the pilots can usually see the target aircraft on the TCAS displays and usually - we know before it happens that a problem is developing. That can save a few years worth of 'grey hair' shocks and make for a smoother response time.
I was going to remark that it is refreshing to hear US ATC with everybody speaking clearly and distinctly (except perhaps the UPS who've got a touch of that "cool" rapid drawl.
@@ilRosewood I thought it was well established that safety is best served if you don't fire people on the spot. Certainly, she shouldn't be on duty right now, but she could still contribute to understanding how this happened, if she's still employed, even if ATC is not her future employment path.
Why the PIC can never relax and assume a controller will keep you safe. Errors are made by all and the need to be trapped by all. Never rest until engines are off at the gate.
I had the same thing happen to me at LAX. Controller was task saturated and gave me a late turn while in the soup. Arrivals were staggered so no RAs happened. Did get a call later to hear my version of what happened. Controller messed up.
TCAS for the win here. It's great to see an example of its utility and success in this instance. Thanks, Juan and VASAviation, for explaining this so well.
Thank goodness for TCAS and pilots knowing to immediately resolve the announcement. I remember the "Mayday" program episode that you mentioned - one pilot knew to follow the TCAS and the other pilot was used to following the ATC. Getting the proper info for the "rules" and required repairs to every country and then every airline company is the key. I've been watching the recreation "Mayday" series for a while and I now understand a whole lot more about terms and technology. But you, Juan, do a great job in explaining everything. I'm not in aviation but have a nephew who is a pilot and his dad used to work as a computer programmer for one of the airlines. At three years old, my nephew was identifying every civil airplane at the airports. At 5, he was perfecting his use of a simulator-like program that his dad rigged up on his home computer while we were all still trying to figure how to properly fly and land the planes. Once you understood take off speeds, most of us could take off pretty well. Even his dad who played it all the time with him was behind.
Approach Control and Arrival Control are combined together. She is working 2 postions combined up. That is also a factor. Not sure if Departure Control is also combined. But if so, she is more busy than the tapes are showing. The Supervisor should have been watching also. UPS could have waited. The priority is always on final. If this was late at night, all the postions could have been combined in the tower cab. Low staffing is going to create more of this. We told the FAA way back in the late 90s that we were all retiring and they had better hire more controllers. But of course they didn't. Mandatory retirement age is 55. They knew it was coming.
Looks like she might have been trying to get one more instruction in before returning to DAL ... then UPS came back with a request that she NEEDED to ignore at the moment!
Many airports around the world with parallel runways have the following clause for pilots: If for any reason, including radio failure or radio congestion, where contact cannot be established or maintained with Air Traffic Control, such that it prevents an instruction issued by ATC or a vectoring request being made by the flight crew, DO NOT PASS THROUGH YOUR ASSIGNED CENTRELINE. Commence the turn to enable an intercept of the final approach course for the runway assigned, then track the extended centreline of the runway assigned.
While I do agree that the controller should have kept Her attention on DAL1070 after giving the 170 heading, IMHO DAL1070 was equally if not a bit more so @ fault for not getting back to Her as it should have been clear to them that they needed to turn before getting into 7R approach space,,, It Appears to Me that DAL1070 just took the bad attitude of > I’m just going to keep doing what I was told to do until I’m either told to do something else or I run into something, it won’t be My fault ~~~~>> It is the responsibility of the Pilot, not ATC, to safely fly the plane ~
@@OlRivrRat1 Disagree. They can't just make up their own clearance. We're vectored in what appears to be very close proximity to other aircraft all the time. We can't just play ATC and make up our own clearances because that other plane "looks close." Often times it looks close laterally to us, but they have us vertically separated. And sometimes they vector us in unexpected ways to avoid threats that we don't even know exist. They're supposed to have the big picture, not us. We don't even know if they even saw the other plane. On left base they're likely looking left to get the runway in sight, and they weren't even advised of the other traffic by the controller. ATC error, plain and simple.
@@Skepilot Yes; FAA and ICAO say not to intercept the centreline unless instructed to do so, for exactly the reasons you state. However, just to muddy the waters, some airports have a published local procedure to do just that in case of frequency congestion. That’s a problem within aviation: inconsistencies create confusion.
Controllers job is to sequence traffic. Many, many times in NY and LA and Chicago airspace, you'll hear a controller use "break" between instructions. A break call would have worked perfectly here to give the controller a chance to keep command of the outgoing radio calls and say, "Break, Delta 1070 turn LEFT heading 090, report runway in sight."
Now that my heart is racing ..... Thank you to Juan and VASAviation. I remember seeing a video a while back on the Russian situation. I felt horrible for all involved. In the normal world temporary lapse or momentary confusion is no big deal. Not so in the air. I could never be a pilot or air traffic controller. My hat is off to you all.
If I need to fly to the mainland (I'm from Guam), I usually transit through SFO, which also has parallel runways. It's amazing how planes can arrive and depart in such a fashion. I've only experienced flying to and from PHX once. Before this video I had no idea about how intricate the orchestration of landings can be. I'm very glad to hear that both aircraft in this incident heeded the TCAS and I hope conditions improve for air traffic controllers nationwide.
Oops. She got distracted. I wonder if Delta had the situational awareness to see the traffic ahead and know that they were go to go through the localizer and end of with a loss of separation in the non transgression zone? They should have seen it coming. They’re experienced aviators.
Worked at ATC in the technical systems group in New Zealand. We implemented new software on our Radar system in the late 1990's called STCA "Short Term Conflict Alert". It worked similar to TCAS, but using ground based aids. Utilizing vectors + altitude it could determine a potential conflict 2 minutes away by beeping along with highlight/flash the flight lables. I'm sure a form of STCA is used in US airspace. Just wanted to add this in here, as there are often more layers to these loss separation incidents. This is from Wikipedia 2002 Überlingen mid-air collision. Tupolev Tu-154 passenger jet, and DHL Flight 611, a Boeing 757 cargo jet, collided in mid-air over Überlingen, Germany. "Maintenance work was being carried out on the main radar image processing system, which meant that the controllers were forced to use a fallback system. The ground-based optical collision warning system, which would have alerted the controller to the pending collision about two minutes before it happened, had been switched off for maintenance. Nielsen (the controller) was unaware of this". As already stated, the pilots are to always follow the TCAS Traffic Advisory in these situations.
In New Zealand this TH-cam video would be illegal. It is illegal to record ATC audio here in NZ. Just thankful that the Blancolirio World Headquarters are NOT in New Zealand; so we are all able to discuss and learn from these recordings and videos. 👍🤣🤣🤣
Several years ago, myself being an en route controller at ZAB, a PHX departure to LAS in sector 92 (high altitude over PRC) had a very strong climb rate which set off a TA on an overflight destined for LAX which generated another TA with overflight destined ORD which generated another TA and yet another! Five aircraft involved with unintended loss of separation. We, as controllers, are not to interfere with TAs so the controllers working that sector could only give traffic advisories. The incident caused a declaration of ATC ZERO by management. The PHX departure was separated by altitude below the LAX lander but the climb rate had initiated the TCASa alert and with the coincidental overflights separated also by altitude.
I guess, that's why pilots normally go V/S at least a thousand feet away from the assigned altitude. Smoothout that RoC/D in order to not confuse TCAS...
It was implied but I think important to note that with Mode S transponders, the TCAS system on each aircraft talk to each other and coordinate non-conflicting RAs. It would also be interesting to know if TA alerts were issued prior to the RAs.
Was just on United UAL1232 into Denver just after 1700 UTC 15 Jan 2025 same issue we were landing on the parallel runway and the pilot ended up having to respond to an RA causing us to go around.
@@RNPAR0.1 Nope the pilot announced that we were going around due to traffic getting too close and then I went and listened to the Live ATC recording and heard the pilot declare he was responding to an RA.
Great presentation as always. Small detail on the statement that a TCAS RA is always hand flown: the Airbus A320s and A330s that I have flown/fly have an autopilot/flight director TCAS mode. If the autopilot is engaged then the TCAS mode will ARM with a TA and ACTIVATE with an RA. The autopilot then follows the RA guidance.
Safety nets worked! Your comment that Delta could have given a shout out asking for the entry heading is kind. As a non IFR pilot, I feel he should have called it. It was a solid VFR environment and as such See and Avoid is the pilots primary resp. Maybe in CRM mode ii's Pilot Monitoring resp., but these guys had their heads down, imo. Still ATC didn't follow their resp too. Good "heads up" to us all. Thanks JB
Thank you very much for this close debrief what happened here! It was another case of good piloting in the cockpits and good luck. Hopefully the good luck is not running out.
Thanks Juan for another factual, informative and non-sensationalist break down of this safety critical incident, keep up the great work ! Would love to see you do some quick travel vids when you are next down under 🇦🇺 but I guess time is always a factor 😢
As a retired TRACON controller, I hate to say it, but I saw that one coming when she issued a heading -- at that moment, they were "wired for sound." And she wasn't even that busy. We used to call that a "dead a** tie."
@@viridimontes The 170 heading created a clear conflict the moment it was issued. Wired for sound is just a saying because they are going to make a sound when they hit each other.
@@viridimontes My guess is because they were given a heading, they were stuck on that heading until the controller gave them new instructions. Can't turn until they hear "the sound of her voice". But that's only a guess. Kind of like the auditory version of "Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes." kinda thing.
I remember seeing 2 big airliners approaching lambert back in the 80s toward the same runway when one made a violent maneuver to the other parallel runway.
Multiple misstatements of aircraft type, misstatement of airline identity, failure to prioritize and maintain proper scan. Missed a big one here. Fatigue? Personal issues/stress? Certainly having difficulty with focus. Still, I couldn't come close to doing that job. Thanks, whoever came up with TCAS and all who made the system work.
@@MA-yl1er Even straight white men make mistakes sometimes - can confirm from personal experience. Not every bad thing that happens in the world is caused by whatever hot-button topic your network/politician of choice is talking about this season to keep you distracted while they take your pocket change and diminish your quality of life.
10 hour shifts by 6 days a week. They do get small breaks every two hours. Source: Opposing Bases Air Traffic Talk podcast. At any busy place like PHX they make great money but it sounds pretty brutal to me at that pace.
Well said. I could never do that job either with people calling in all the time. But you could see how she was making those mistakes. I don’t know if that indicates fatigue but it seems that it could.
I’m not a pilot and have no reason to be interested but I just love this channel. I enjoy listening to people wh know their shit regardless of what it is.
The perfect example of why TCAS was installed. It worked this time. Saved lives. The controller was talking to UPS and should have talked to Delta 1070 first. Great job by the pilots. You too Juan
I'm sure that situations like this become the basis for training scenarios in ATC school. Controllers need more jump seat time to see how pilots hear the transmissions in the air while multitasking.
@@DaedricFaZe While not as common as it once was, some air traffic controllers still have the opportunity to occasionally ride in airliners to experience the pilot's perspective through programs offered by airlines or their own ATC provider, allowing them to better understand the pilot's viewpoint during flight operations and decision-making processes
When I first saw this video a few days ago I thought it was another click bait video where people think planes are nearer to each other than they actually are but jeez looking at the graphics provided by Victor it’s far from that! Well done both crews, that was so close. As you say if you are an Aviation enthusiast (like Justin) you know all the normal flight patterns in your local area and you know when things aren’t right. Great analysis video Juan
Thank you for the breakdown! I am an amateur radio operator and I run the radio for a couple of nets a week where I handle 3-10 calls at a time. I get call signs confused every time (Sometimes it is because they double and sometimes because I have fat fingers.). I make more mistakes when I am a bit tired. Luckily, everyone I am working is terrestrial. No one is in danger of getting in trouble.
Juan I love the way you present these situations! 20 odd years ago I was on a flight from Seattle to Juneau. I happened to be looking out of the window when a second Alaska jet crossed from left to right and passed underneath us with no more than a couple hundred feet! The whole plane(s) should have diverted to Las Vegas to see if I luck still held! Bob L
" Clear and a million" for the weather at Phx Int... '....this may be why 3 of the top 10 most heavily used General Aviation airports are in the greater Phoenix area...Dear Valley, Falcon Field and Chandler
Quite true. I joked with a friend one time that Deer Valley has more traffic than Tulsa International Airport. Deer Valley averages 1100 operations a day, Tulsa, a commercial airport, averages 240. Falcon Field has around 1400 a day.
@@kallsop2 If one was to draw a triangle between Deer Valley, Falcon Field, and SDL Scottsdale, I used to live dang near dead center. Day or night, if I went out into the backyard, I could see low flying aircraft on approach or departure. One time, when family was flying into the Valley to visit, I went outside for a smoke and saw what was probably their aircraft right over my house, so I knew it was time to head to PHX to pick them up. :)
Paris DeGaulle has a rule that if within 70 degrees of final and not cleared, we are to intercept final regardless. We need to implement this rule in the US. Anyone that regularly flys into US hub airports has had something similar happen. I think such a rule could help mitigate the threat and relieve pressure on ATC.
More than likely, they saw it coming and were prepared to respond. The comms could have been more concise and correct, but they both got the word to ATC. Most importantly, they both flew the profile correctly.
My home airport is John Wayne (SR20) and our two parallels are 500 feet apart. I did a tour of the tower there a few years back and talked to the controllers about that. They said you would be surprised how many GA aircraft do late final turns and encroach on the parallel. Maybe because I was trained there, it really surprised me. My instructors POUNDED into my head not to fly a 90 leg base leg and always be aware of overshooting 20L centerline.
It’s always a good idea to slow down as you approach the localized and ATC is behind or super busy. I think the whole intercept procedure should be updated, there are too many manual instructions that shouldn’t be necessary.
Big D needs to pull their head out and call the field if they have it and or speak up! Obviously ATC dropped the ball but wtf how about doing some pilot $h!t. I’m happy Juan touched on that at the end of this video.
They made her job about twice as hard by not using proper phraseology. It should have been stated by Delta to the controller "Delta 1070 unable current altitude RA CLIMB or RA DESCENT". Once they are clear of the conflict, and TCAS will tell you this, they should have stated to the controller "Delta 1070 clear of conflict" clearly letting the controller know that she was once again in control of the aircraft altitude not the TCAS. Pilots have some of the blame in this as well, does not look good on their part!
Something to note that I found very impressive when I found out personally. I was flying the Fenix A320 in MSFS out of LAX when someone flying a fighter came to “escort” me. The TCAS actually gave me all the proper RA’s and even moved the aircraft in response when I was still trying to figure out what was happening. They did an awesome job at modeling everything.
TCAS is easy to model. The algorithm is simple and the pesudocode is published in the standard. Aircraft are more difficult to model. That's why I use Xplane rather than MSFS.
Thankyou Yuan, It's Pressure enough in the Cockpit without dealing with such situations, I don't blame ATC as a mate of mind once a RAF ATC now working out of Heathrow, I talk to him often in runs over there. The pressure these guys are under immense pressure, Andrew took me through a tour of both Tower and Main Area Control Room and you can feel the Pressure yet in a calming sense of way. Areas of separation over an Airfield cam be Rainy, Clear but in the end so much is going on your concentration is Transfixed on your own Airplane whilst listening to ATC and trying to maintain some visual outside with Air Traffic. Fatigue can be an issue, Andrew worked Heathrow time and time again 16 hour days (I kid you not), That's a hefty Workload, So even in Bright Light things can be a little hairy. I was on approach to an Lis Angeles in a 747-400 when about Five miles out I heard an (Won't Mention) Airline MD82 was given an advisory to hold short of Runway at Hold Mark as inbound 747 inbound on your left is now Four Miles from Landing. The MD82 nosed out out was Turning into the runway, We Geared Up, Reset and maintained Runway Heading advising ATC. We were assigned a 360 back to Runway whilst MD82 Departed once we landed we were asked I have a Number for you to call, I said wait until I'm clear of the Runway where trying to Short Finish this Fill Out for a Short Final A330 which we did and the A330 Captain said thankyou kindly Sir, I just replied no problem, When the number was given again I refused it and I explained to him the reasons why (I have been in an ATC Environment for a Two Whole day session, I don't blame you Sir and at times things are misunderstood in the Cockpit., Yes He should have at least looked to his left, Clear Day, Our Full Landing lights On, It happens and we had plenty of time to go around. These ATC Personal do a Magnicent Job. Regards John
I'm surprised that UPS requested to switch to RWY 8. Cargo is on the southern edge of the airport, so RWY 7R is the closest to where they need to go. But I'm not in the cockpit, so I don't know what they were dealing with that they would need to cut the distance and/or time like that.
I continue to be a amazed in aviation at the missed opportunities for additional safety, in this case sequencing Delta a little behind United. Life first, time and money second! Cheers.
this is where pilots need to be proactive and have total SA in the pattern....I cannot tell you how many times when I was flying at UAL where I had to inquire when approaching the final approach course should I turn to intercept and 100% of the time it was yes turn to intercept....ATC already has you on a 90 degree intercept so you know their intent is to give you a final vector to intercept and to not have you blast thru the final unless they tell you that is their intent..... you just cannot blindly blast thru a final especially when there are parallel runways involved with other airplanes....Controllers get tunnel vision as well and sometimes need a prompt...
I wonder what the crews were thinking, or if they even knew where the other plane was. Did they see the conflict coming? They probably did and were thining "we do this every day here" and then the airwaves got tied up with UPS at exactly the wrong time..........which is why having a normal practice of turning two airplanes to the exact place in space, at the same time, isn't smart no matter how many times you pull it off.
Frequency was tied up with ATC talking to UPS. Couldn't get a word in edgewise. You say you "cannot blindly blast thru a final" but procedurally they can't just decide to intercept final on their own. Guidance in US is to maintain assigned heading until given clearance to intercept. In other countries guidance is to intercept final in this scenario. I think the other countries have it right and the US should change to match.
@@Skepilotthat's a good point until you can see someone else coming down final, relative position not moving in the window but growing larger by the second. Pilot is responsible 1st to See and Avoid in a VFR environment. Safety of flight makes it pilots obligation to "make it up".
@@roberthayes9241 I've been flying parallel approaches into class B airports for over 30 years. We're frequently vectored in what appears to be very close proximity to other aircraft all the time. We can't just play ATC and make up our own clearances because that other plane "looks close." Often times it seems close laterally to us, but they have us vertically separated. And sometimes they vector us in unexpected ways to avoid threats that we don't even know exist. If we make up our own clearance we could conflict with another plane that we don't know about. They're supposed to have the big picture, not us. On a 90-degree vector with the other plane on a long, straight-in final, it would not have been a situation you describe of "relative position not moving in the window but growing larger by the second." We don't know if they even saw the other plane. On left base they're likely looking left to get the runway in sight, and they weren't even advised of the other traffic by the controller! It's more likely the UAL saw the DAL coming than the other way around. ATC is also supposed to stagger traffic on parallel runways so IF they forget the final vector it doesn't create this situation. The controller screwed in multiple ways. ATC error, plain and simple.
Using properly the frequency is a piece of art. The best is always to say a short message to design every airplane doing the same way, as landing. Number one, number two, etc... is a good way we use in glider's landfields. To ask a 360 degrees turn to a motorise plane is used frequently to avoid a risky situation. Good flies everybody and don't forget to always watch outside your planes.❤ from 🇨🇵
Juan, thank you for your great content about aviation safety. I wanted to point out that lately there are some spam accounts that are masquerading as people that are thanking you for your content in the form of comments on your videos, when in fact their profile pictures show that they are spam accounts that are peddling awful content. You or a moderator in this channel may need to take some action in order to kick these spam accounts from your channel. I just say this because I appreciate your work and your channel should only welcome genuine people who are here for your great content.
Those spam bots are common on many channels and there’s not much that can be done about them other than ignoring them. They do provide additional activity on the video which helps the algorithm.
John, the creator is able to moderate their channels comments to some degree. The comments can definitely be deleted. These bots comment on almost every channel of decent size and reach. Thankfully, most of the channels I watch regularly are proactive about removing the spam. It’s a much better look for newer viewers and any who find it annoying. Compared to ignoring it and using it to try appease an algorithm… which could be a negative in the long run
@@cpzmelbs the problem is that there’s apparently a never ending supply of these bots so deleting them just takes valuable time from the channel owner or moderators.
Great analysis as always, Juan!
Thanks for the shoutout, and for your support and the support of your followers! Really appreciate it!
@@VASAviation I’m a pilot who appreciates your work! Thank you for your great content.
Victor is a legend. :)
Juan and @VASAviation are my number 1 sources for accurate aviation information. Thank you BOTH for the great work and please keep it up. I (and on behalf of everyone else) really really love it.
Thank you very much for your work!👍
We love your content and greatly appreciate your collaboration with the @blancolirio channel.
I work this kind of traffic at a busy approach control/TRACON every day. She got distracted by UPS and forgot about the DAL. It’s something we teach to trainees all the time: “Aircraft on the base are your #1 priority.” You work your scan (just like an IFR instrument scan) starting from the airport outwards.
It is an obvious panic move when you realize you are late for a turn to final that you try and jam the base leg in there. As soon as you get the readback of the 30 degree heading these aircraft are now separated.
However, by the time she realizes what was happening, it was too late to save this situation. Best move is the vector DAL on a southwest heading to pass behind (get divergence) and give UAL an immediate climb. Realizing this and doing it quickly is one of the hardest things in ATC. It’s very hard to realize in a split second that you screwed up, and there’s no way to fix the situation without a double go around.
She’ll just file an atsap
@@aa-xh2cg
Thank you for this professional advice. I’m gonna ask you as I asked in a general comment. Would a software change for ATC radar help ID these problems just like TCAS alerts flight crews?
@@Chris-Nico Her screen showed the red CA tag near simultaneously to their RA. Too late for her to sort it out.
@
Thank you. Good to know. I’m not a controller obviously
@@Chris-Nicothe differents radar sysrems already have a conflict alert, prompt in as some limits (longitudinal or vertical) are surpased
A clear-headed explanation, offered without the blamey rhetoric and hyperbole offered by a lot of people commenting. Juan understands human performance limitations and promotes learning from errors, rather than finger pointing.
Exactly, great Just Culture approach
Doesn't matter, computers will soon handle all phases of flight.
@M3talr3x computers fail every day.
I experienced DEI with the FAA in the 70's.
Then, the federal "150 Program" gave an additional a year of training (ungraded practice) to minorities and women.
White males had to pass the first time over and over in the various phases of Air Traffic Control training, versus the ungraded practice the DEI hires at the time were afforded.
This was 1978.
Another great example of my "White Privilege."
I suspect those trying to blame DEI are really trying to compensate for failures and inadequacies of their own.
Great to hear a lack of attitude or snarkiness from either crew. Way to show professionalism and represent the industry well in a tough situation.
"...you see, Charlie, that's how you handles a TCAS RA..."
TCAS was the best safety system deployed during my ATC career.
After PSA182 in 1978 and then Aeromexico in 1986, it was way overdue. I wonder how many loves it has saved?
As long as the pilots respond appropriately.
@@shauny2285 - If that comment is referencing the DHL/Bashkarian accident, it’s a bit more complicated. At the time TCAS was still relatively new. The ICAO guidance that existed at the time essentially said in the event of a conflict between TCAS and controller instructions, do what you think is safest. DHL’s procedures said follow TCAS, Bashkarian’s said follow ATC. Obviously this didn’t work, so the guidance was then changed to what it is today: Comply with the RA, ignore the controller’s instructions.
Another outgrowth of this was the development of TCAS II version 7.1, which has significantly imp ability to command a reversal (to go from commanding a descent to a climb or vice-versa). Along with this, the recommended verbiage for crews was changed from “TCAS Climb” (or descent) to amore generic, “TCAS RA,” rather than “TCAS CLIMB [DESCENT).
I heard the most effective safety device ever installed in a motor vehicle is a rear view mirror, with a police car in it.
that resequence by delta sounds like a great call. so close to landing and could just rush in , but chose to take the calm route and resequence
My TH-cam autoplayed like 9 mentour pilot disaster videos in a row today while I was working and I think 8 of them were either directly caused or exacerbated by an unstable approach. Including a successful avoidance of disaster by a 777 that did a 3rd go-around despite bare minimum fuel rather than continuing a less than ideal approach.
Thank you for the detailed breakdown! I follow many YT folks who do live videos where it's common for viewers to "super chat" comments. I always feel bad I can't "thank you" live like I do with them...but hopefully this helps encourage you to continue making this type of content. I ALWAYS look forward to your videos regarding any aviation incident since you focus on the facts and not the f**kery.
Thanks Boyo!
It wasn’t just the UPS plane that messed up her timing.
The interaction with Key Lime took 36 seconds with all of the plan-to-follow discussion. The interaction with UPS and SWA took 44 seconds.
I think that they Both affected the controller’s perception of time passing since beginning the base.
Bullshit
Key Lime was talking for far too long 🤨
She definitely needed to be more concise with her communication, and should have denied a runway change for the UPS plane IMO. The problem was she didn’t realize she had gotten behind in her communication with the aircrafts
Sort of, but I think the issue is her interactions with those two should have taken zero time. Let them rot a few seconds while you handle the important stuff.
Long story short, atc lost situational awareness. It happens to the best of us. Hopefully, this was a wake up call to get her priorities straight, and if it wasn’t, she needs to removed from duty for retraining. Some people aren’t cut out for certain jobs, but we can’t make any assumptions based on this single event.
TCAS was paid for in blood and so were the rules on how to use it.
Your channel does it's part in all of this to help keep everyone flying safe. Thank you.❤
As a former military and FAA controller, I appreciate the clear, concise and factual explanation. As soon as you showed the traffic situation, my gut tightened... I was not aware of this incident, but surely recognized the ingredients in the brewing stew.
I worked final at GTG for 29 years. Can't see anything wrong with just having UAL land long, and get Delta slow her down a bit and slip in behind. We're still miles from the tarmac there, no panic. Cook through that last high speed turnoff, and Bob's your uncle.
Military controllers are some of the worst controllers in the system.
Same here. I saw the immediate conflict on the scope. This has happened before at PHX. The "turn to 170 degrees" for the Airbus 330 was shaving it close and I heard the Delta pilot question the 170 heading to confirm. She affirmed it. The UPS was a distraction because he wanted a runway change. Cringe.
I feel like the ATC was about to give Delta the turn, but when the UPS threw in the "runway change" request that took her a moment to get situated and it messed up the timing just enough to cause the conflict. In hindsight (which we all know is perfect) she should have probably said "UPS standby, Delta turn left heading 100 to intercept" or however the cadence should have been.
Not an atc but I feel as soon as the UPS threw in the distraction her response should have been “ UPS standby , delta turn left …..” Delta should have been the priority
@@sibtainbukhari5447 no her response should have been to ignore UPS and turn Delta ,aircraft checking in are the last duty pirority
@@ogc90 "UPS standby" *is* the indication that you are ignoring them for now.
Ups standby is a waste of time. Ups has to standby until the controller responds. She should of just went to delta, however, she should of went to delta two transmissions earlier
@ Sorry, David. That's not how radio protocol works. The FAA Aeronautical Information Manual dictates radio procedures between ATC and pilots. Chapter 3 specifically covers the explicit meaning of the "standby" instruction as it relates to entering and maneuvering within controlled airspace around an airport.
In watching Juan’s videos over the years, I’m left amazed at the level of responsibility air traffic controllers have , every minute, of every shift. There is no forgiveness. And it is made worse due to the on-going man-power shortage in the ATC profession. The system, as designed, is at its capacity.
The constant intense responsibility of so many lives is why I decided ATC was not for me. I'm fascinated to watch VASAviation instead
I'd never want to take on that responsibility, myself. One inadvertent blink could be disastrous. Especially at an airport as busy as Sky Harbor (or busier).
You and Victor are an awesome team - love how your channels complement each other and the hard work you both do!
Absolutely.
Like Batman and Robin!
I like how the atc controller doesn't speak fast, is not rude, pilots and controller don't freak out over the radio.
ATC and Pilot. 2 jobs that no amount of money could get me to do. Way too much stress. The people that do it day in and day out are amazing. My hats off to you.
You’ll be right mate.
I’ll hold your hand!
Thank you humbly. It's not stress if you're well trained and you like it. It can be extremely satisfying, especially when it's busy or in adverse weather. Note: I worked tower and ground, not radar (approach) but we were one group. Loved every day or night on the job.
Juan…. As a retired controller from Chicago who spent a good part of my 30 years training other controllers I would like to have you rethink where the situation went bad.
We often teach priority of duties, that is the situational awareness to always know what the most important thing happening in your airspace at anytime.
The traffic should have been called when she gave the turn to 170.
Then because she made that turn the turn to final was her highest priority. Neither the Key Lime nor the UPS was a priority at that moment.
The turn to 170 should have included a traffic call and if possible a clearance to maintain visual. This should have been followed immediately to a call to United for the same thing. Following that then another call to United to do a visual approach to allow him to maneuver.
Then and only then should she have answered Key Lime.
Does she get refresher training or something similar after this? What are her next steps?
@efoxxok7478 Most relevant comment. thx
Did you work ORD or the Aurora Tracon?
Yes. "Turn left heading 170, TRAFFIC IS..." 😉
Thanks for further clarification!
In the US we're taught not to intercept final unless/until we receive clearance to do so. In the Airbus, when we "extend the line" to create the intercept in the MCDU (FMS), procedurally we disarm the NAV so it does NOT intercept before we've received the clearance.
In many other countries the guidance is opposite. In Paris, for example, our guidance is, "When on a vector of less than 70 degrees to the final approach course, pilots are expected to automatically join final unless they have been given explicit instructions to cross runway centerline."
That still wouldn't have helped with a 90-degree vector, but in my opinion, the default guidance (to just automatically join final) in France is safer than ours in the US. I think we should change to similar guidance in the US.
Same on Boeings. We extend the center line and go to Heading. We only ARM Loc (or Nav) when cleared.
A stupid rule. It should change.
European controller (retired). Where I worked nobody was expected to do anything automatically. Just follow procedures e.g. do not intercept the localiser unless instructed to "intercept the localiser". Simple, standard, safe. And of course, if anyone feels doubt could arise then take that away with additional info.
@@EHAMZTZXYeah, it varies by location. Many locations have procedures directing pilots to join the final on their own if they don't receive the clearance in time. These are typically locations with parallel approaches or other threats that would present if the final approach course was flown through, such as terrain or traffic from nearby airports.
In the absence of that procedure, controllers should separate traffic on parallel approaches with both vertical and in-trail spacing, so if the clearance to intercept is not issued there's not an immediate conflict.
I still think that the direction to have pilots automatically intercept in the case of lost comm, frequency congestion or forgotten clearance is the safest fallback for parallel approaches.
I know it's a note on the approach plates for CDG, but I think Paris is the exception rather than the rule, and part of the reason is them knocking down to one controller at night who handles practically everything (way too much IMHO).
@ Yeah, it definitely varies by location. As I said above, where this direction is in place are typically locations with parallel approaches or other threats that would present if the final approach course was flown through, such as terrain or traffic from nearby airports. I still think it would be a good fallback policy at any airport with parallel approaches.
Witness similar at Birmingham UK, mirror image of this several years ago. One aircraft straight in and another passed underneath from a right base, both set up for approach. Cavok blue sky. Right base traffic orbited around to reposition. Closest i ever saw 2 airliners.
Great analysis, Juan. As an active ATC in Europe (also an OJTI), I noticed the not very strict adherence to TCAS RA procedures by both the crews and the ATC. We insist a lot on following exactly the right course of actions and the use of standard phraseology. A TCAS RA reported by a crew should be automatically followed by a “ROGER” and nothing else by the TCA. And then wait for a “CLEAR OF CONFLICT” before anymore instructions are given to that crew. If the “CLEAR OF CONFLICT” is not reported by the crew and they request or say any other thing, the ATC should reply with just a “CONFIRM CLEAR OF CONFLICT” before anymore instructions are transmitted. Once again, thanks to you, to Victor and to the holy-best-invention-in-aviation-ever, Saint TCAS.
I agree with the above. In Europe, as pilots, we get hammered in the sims to use correct phraseology in this case
"TCAS RA"
Both the Delta and United crew did not adhere to this standard, and this could potentially have caused unnecessary confusion if they had operated outside the US airspace.
Apart from that, the rest was well executed.
Unpopular opinion here: American pilots should get in the habit of using the "PAN-PAN and MAYDAY prefixes, as well as the above TCAS radio discipline.
TCAS saved this situation?
@@filipbigun5834 Yup. Dreadful RT but I think that's not uncommon. The controller then issued instructions without any mention of "clear of conflict" from either aircraft.
TCAS worked and thankfully all involved followed TCAS ! The controller got behind and failed to work from the airport out. Fatigue? Yeah! Probably. I am retired for over ten years now and I am STILL Fatigued! I didn't even work the finals, which are as difficult and challenging as any sector can be. I got to go on a familiarization flight in the FAA's old B727, I think it was hull # 3, and they demonstrated TCAS to us flying over BRIJJ at KSFO during the morning arrival rush. It was quite impressive! Of course most of us controllers hated the concept. Thank you Juan for another very important report!
The controller clearly got distracted and screwed up, but she did a great job recovering. We all screw up. Hope she didn't get too much grief over this.
She remained calm and remedied things. That's about all she can do in this situation, given she probably just got the fright of her life.
She did not, she pestered the crews of the airplanes following the RA with questions and instructions that were not important at the moment. She didn't seem to understand what was going on. She seemed annoyed at the RA more than anything.
So, as I'm out here driving, the ATC is my green traffic light, but the TCAS is the brake lights on the car in front of me. I think I'll follow the TCAS.
Thanks for a great breakdown.
Don’t text while driving
Except with TCAS, you don't think. You just DO.
Thank you for calling out Victor. I appreciate you both for all the work you do to keep the skies safer.🎉❤
We’re all human and make mistakes. Unfortunately those mistakes in the ATC realm are very unforgiving.
I’ve had controllers (attempt to) pass me off to tower without issuing an approach clearance and have had them forget to pass me off to tower. It happens. This video proves pilot situational awareness is critical especially in the terminal area.
Superb explanation. We're lucky to have TCAS as an air partner. Without, I recall PSA 182 in '78 or AM 498 in '86. No doubt the technology has saved countless lives.
The Cerritos Ca, involving the AM498 was the accident that give the last impulse for the TCAS to be mandatory
@@enriqueantonioviterodrigue6402 That Air Mexico tried to land at Chino then missed the power lines over the 71 fwy. low to LAX - I follows it on a photo flight and saw the mushroom cloud in Cerritos. What a mess.
Both were devastating accidents...And clearly shows' and showed a ture need for a T C A S system... Thank goodness the cool demeanor of the pilots and control to function and make good and clear appropriate calls to continue as they respond to R A and resequence those aircraft...
I was a little kid on a playground and saw PSA 182 happen when I lived in San Diego
Great review Juan especially focusing on pilot actions rather than the controller’s mistake. Applaud the controller for not getting flustered and immediately offering resequence.
Thankfully, the pilots can usually see the target aircraft on the TCAS displays and usually - we know before it happens that a problem is developing. That can save a few years worth of 'grey hair' shocks and make for a smoother response time.
And preemptively/proactively ask for a turn to final before the overshoot happens. Or maybe windup up the turn to final if it comes late..
This controller has a great radio voice. Clear and very pleasant to listen to. I hope she is able to overcome this incident.
Reminds me of Shaaron Claridge, of the old Adam 12 series.
I was going to remark that it is refreshing to hear US ATC with everybody speaking clearly and distinctly (except perhaps the UPS who've got a touch of that "cool" rapid drawl.
She almost caused the death of hundreds of people but you are focused on her "pleasant voice" ?
Weird remark
Surely she is fired on the spot for this, right?
@@ilRosewood I thought it was well established that safety is best served if you don't fire people on the spot. Certainly, she shouldn't be on duty right now, but she could still contribute to understanding how this happened, if she's still employed, even if ATC is not her future employment path.
Too many welcomes and thankyous and not enough standbys for the distracting traffic.
Why the PIC can never relax and assume a controller will keep you safe. Errors are made by all and the need to be trapped by all. Never rest until engines are off at the gate.
I had the same thing happen to me at LAX. Controller was task saturated and gave me a late turn while in the soup. Arrivals were staggered so no RAs happened. Did get a call later to hear my version of what happened. Controller messed up.
TCAS for the win here. It's great to see an example of its utility and success in this instance. Thanks, Juan and VASAviation, for explaining this so well.
@@justinepaula-robilliard My takeaway from Juan's video was that TCAS gave everyone the critical heads up warning that they weren't getting elsewhere.
Thank goodness for TCAS and pilots knowing to immediately resolve the announcement. I remember the "Mayday" program episode that you mentioned - one pilot knew to follow the TCAS and the other pilot was used to following the ATC. Getting the proper info for the "rules" and required repairs to every country and then every airline company is the key. I've been watching the recreation "Mayday" series for a while and I now understand a whole lot more about terms and technology. But you, Juan, do a great job in explaining everything. I'm not in aviation but have a nephew who is a pilot and his dad used to work as a computer programmer for one of the airlines. At three years old, my nephew was identifying every civil airplane at the airports. At 5, he was perfecting his use of a simulator-like program that his dad rigged up on his home computer while we were all still trying to figure how to properly fly and land the planes. Once you understood take off speeds, most of us could take off pretty well. Even his dad who played it all the time with him was behind.
Approach Control and Arrival Control are combined together. She is working 2 postions combined up. That is also a factor. Not sure if Departure Control is also combined. But if so, she is more busy than the tapes are showing. The Supervisor should have been watching also. UPS could have waited. The priority is always on final. If this was late at night, all the postions could have been combined in the tower cab. Low staffing is going to create more of this. We told the FAA way back in the late 90s that we were all retiring and they had better hire more controllers. But of course they didn't. Mandatory retirement age is 55. They knew it was coming.
Looks like she might have been trying to get one more instruction in before returning to DAL ... then UPS came back with a request that she NEEDED to ignore at the moment!
@@chrisschack9716UPS was being a "squeaky wheel" and she oiled it.
Fu...5 aircraft?
Mandatory retirement is 56
@@davidbarker6899 retired in 2014 at 56...33 years of service
Many airports around the world with parallel runways have the following clause for pilots:
If for any reason, including radio failure or radio congestion, where contact cannot be established or maintained with Air Traffic Control, such that it prevents an instruction issued by ATC or a vectoring request being made by the flight crew, DO NOT PASS THROUGH YOUR ASSIGNED CENTRELINE. Commence the turn to enable an intercept of the final approach course for the runway assigned, then track the extended centreline of the runway assigned.
Seems like a sensible rule to me, certainly more sensible than to blindly continue straight ahead until you crash into something.
That's the rule in other countries, but not in the US. (Though I agree, it should be.)
While I do agree that the controller should have kept Her attention on DAL1070 after giving the 170 heading,
IMHO DAL1070 was equally if not a bit more so @ fault for not getting back to Her as it should have been clear to
them that they needed to turn before getting into 7R approach space,,,
It Appears to Me that DAL1070 just took the bad attitude of > I’m just going to keep doing what I was told to do until
I’m either told to do something else or I run into something, it won’t be My fault ~~~~>>
It is the responsibility of the Pilot, not ATC, to safely fly the plane ~
@@OlRivrRat1 Disagree. They can't just make up their own clearance. We're vectored in what appears to be very close proximity to other aircraft all the time. We can't just play ATC and make up our own clearances because that other plane "looks close." Often times it looks close laterally to us, but they have us vertically separated. And sometimes they vector us in unexpected ways to avoid threats that we don't even know exist. They're supposed to have the big picture, not us. We don't even know if they even saw the other plane. On left base they're likely looking left to get the runway in sight, and they weren't even advised of the other traffic by the controller. ATC error, plain and simple.
@@Skepilot
Yes; FAA and ICAO say not to intercept the centreline unless instructed to do so, for exactly the reasons you state. However, just to muddy the waters, some airports have a published local procedure to do just that in case of frequency congestion.
That’s a problem within aviation: inconsistencies create confusion.
Controllers job is to sequence traffic. Many, many times in NY and LA and Chicago airspace, you'll hear a controller use "break" between instructions. A break call would have worked perfectly here to give the controller a chance to keep command of the outgoing radio calls and say, "Break, Delta 1070 turn LEFT heading 090, report runway in sight."
Now that my heart is racing ..... Thank you to Juan and VASAviation. I remember seeing a video a while back on the Russian situation. I felt horrible for all involved. In the normal world temporary lapse or momentary confusion is no big deal. Not so in the air. I could never be a pilot or air traffic controller. My hat is off to you all.
Great preventive action by all concerned to prevent what could’ve been a disastrous result,thank Juan,safe flights mate,👏👏🙏🙏👍👍🇦🇺
If I need to fly to the mainland (I'm from Guam), I usually transit through SFO, which also has parallel runways. It's amazing how planes can arrive and depart in such a fashion. I've only experienced flying to and from PHX once. Before this video I had no idea about how intricate the orchestration of landings can be. I'm very glad to hear that both aircraft in this incident heeded the TCAS and I hope conditions improve for air traffic controllers nationwide.
Oops. She got distracted. I wonder if Delta had the situational awareness to see the traffic ahead and know that they were go to go through the localizer and end of with a loss of separation in the non transgression zone? They should have seen it coming. They’re experienced aviators.
Worked at ATC in the technical systems group in New Zealand. We implemented new software on our Radar system in the late 1990's called STCA "Short Term Conflict Alert". It worked similar to TCAS, but using ground based aids. Utilizing vectors + altitude it could determine a potential conflict 2 minutes away by beeping along with highlight/flash the flight lables. I'm sure a form of STCA is used in US airspace. Just wanted to add this in here, as there are often more layers to these loss separation incidents.
This is from Wikipedia 2002 Überlingen mid-air collision.
Tupolev Tu-154 passenger jet, and DHL Flight 611, a Boeing 757 cargo jet, collided in mid-air over Überlingen, Germany.
"Maintenance work was being carried out on the main radar image processing system, which meant that the controllers were forced to use a fallback system. The ground-based optical collision warning system, which would have alerted the controller to the pending collision about two minutes before it happened, had been switched off for maintenance. Nielsen (the controller) was unaware of this".
As already stated, the pilots are to always follow the TCAS Traffic Advisory in these situations.
In New Zealand this TH-cam video would be illegal. It is illegal to record ATC audio here in NZ.
Just thankful that the Blancolirio World Headquarters are NOT in New Zealand; so we are all able to discuss and learn from these recordings and videos. 👍🤣🤣🤣
I expect at some busy US airports a two minute heads up would create so many warnings it would end up just being ignored.
Love Victor and his channel. Great use of his resources to explain this situation.
Several years ago, myself being an en route controller at ZAB, a PHX departure to LAS in sector 92 (high altitude over PRC) had a very strong climb rate which set off a TA on an overflight destined for LAX which generated another TA with overflight destined ORD which generated another TA and yet another! Five aircraft involved with unintended loss of separation. We, as controllers, are not to interfere with TAs so the controllers working that sector could only give traffic advisories. The incident caused a declaration of ATC ZERO by management. The PHX departure was separated by altitude below the LAX lander but the climb rate had initiated the TCASa alert and with the coincidental overflights separated also by altitude.
I guess, that's why pilots normally go V/S at least a thousand feet away from the assigned altitude. Smoothout that RoC/D in order to not confuse TCAS...
Great video Juan. There is no way I could work in a tower. Always have to be aware when you are a pilot.
All these people in aviation brains are way sharper than mine.
Excellent explanation Juan…you are a real professional!
Thanks!
It was implied but I think important to note that with Mode S transponders, the TCAS system on each aircraft talk to each other and coordinate non-conflicting RAs. It would also be interesting to know if TA alerts were issued prior to the RAs.
Thank you, Juan. I still love your channel! Excellent content!
Was just on United UAL1232 into Denver just after 1700 UTC 15 Jan 2025 same issue we were landing on the parallel runway and the pilot ended up having to respond to an RA causing us to go around.
How do you know it was a TA ? Were you in the flight deck?
@@RNPAR0.1 Nope the pilot announced that we were going around due to traffic getting too close and then I went and listened to the Live ATC recording and heard the pilot declare he was responding to an RA.
@@TFlight77 Great ! Thanks for the context.
LOL (@RNP)…bet you didn’t expect that answer from him about your flight deck question.
He did his homework.
@Brahmlullies that's the point of asking questions when there is lack of context in a statement.
At least the pilots were awake and had great situational awareness! Great explanation Juan!
Even the UPS said it was taking to long to get directions and he was farther out!
Excellent syntax, and polite; a pleasure to listen too.
Another excellent summary. Thanks!
Thanks for the explanation. I watched Victor’s video but I was still confused
Great presentation as always. Small detail on the statement that a TCAS RA is always hand flown: the Airbus A320s and A330s that I have flown/fly have an autopilot/flight director TCAS mode. If the autopilot is engaged then the TCAS mode will ARM with a TA and ACTIVATE with an RA. The autopilot then follows the RA guidance.
Safety nets worked! Your comment that Delta could have given a shout out asking for the entry heading is kind. As a non IFR pilot, I feel he should have called it. It was a solid VFR environment and as such See and Avoid is the pilots primary resp. Maybe in CRM mode ii's Pilot Monitoring resp., but these guys had their heads down, imo. Still ATC didn't follow their resp too. Good "heads up" to us all. Thanks JB
I absolutely agree, what were the 330 drivers doing???
Thank you very much for this close debrief what happened here! It was another case of good piloting in the cockpits and good luck. Hopefully the good luck is not running out.
Thanks Juan for another factual, informative and non-sensationalist break down of this safety critical incident, keep up the great work ! Would love to see you do some quick travel vids when you are next down under 🇦🇺 but I guess time is always a factor 😢
Thanks for explaining this in such a way a passenger can understand clearly. Take care, Juan. Fly right.
As a retired TRACON controller, I hate to say it, but I saw that one coming when she issued a heading -- at that moment, they were "wired for sound." And she wasn't even that busy. We used to call that a "dead a** tie."
Wired for sound how?
@@viridimontes The 170 heading created a clear conflict the moment it was issued. Wired for sound is just a saying because they are going to make a sound when they hit each other.
What's the proper procedure? Also, could she have asked UPS to wait on their stuff, since they're still aways out to the north of the airport?
@@viridimontes My guess is because they were given a heading, they were stuck on that heading until the controller gave them new instructions. Can't turn until they hear "the sound of her voice". But that's only a guess. Kind of like the auditory version of "Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes." kinda thing.
It also my opinion. In this case, what would be the best course of action from the controler? Extend DAL1070 and sequence him behind UAL1724?
This one gave me goosebumps, the controller starting to not understand calls reflects the stress she's caught up in. Very scary
I remember seeing 2 big airliners approaching lambert back in the 80s toward the same runway when one made a violent maneuver to the other parallel runway.
Excellent Presentation…as always. Giving credit where it is due. Thanks as always. Your efforts do make the friendly skies safer!
Multiple misstatements of aircraft type, misstatement of airline identity, failure to prioritize and maintain proper scan. Missed a big one here. Fatigue? Personal issues/stress? Certainly having difficulty with focus. Still, I couldn't come close to doing that job. Thanks, whoever came up with TCAS and all who made the system work.
@@MA-yl1er Even straight white men make mistakes sometimes - can confirm from personal experience. Not every bad thing that happens in the world is caused by whatever hot-button topic your network/politician of choice is talking about this season to keep you distracted while they take your pocket change and diminish your quality of life.
UPS and UAL ... both three letters ... both begin with same letter ... we shouldn't allow such cavalier choice of designator naming.
10 hour shifts by 6 days a week. They do get small breaks every two hours. Source: Opposing Bases Air Traffic Talk podcast.
At any busy place like PHX they make great money but it sounds pretty brutal to me at that pace.
Well said. I could never do that job either with people calling in all the time. But you could see how she was making those mistakes. I don’t know if that indicates fatigue but it seems that it could.
@@paulsherman51 So… there should only be 26 possible designators? That’s the solution?
Thanks Juan and appreciate Victor's work as well.
I’m not a pilot and have no reason to be interested but I just love this channel. I enjoy listening to people wh know their shit regardless of what it is.
I'm not a pilot either but I am interested in all forms of transportation. I love this channel because I learn so much from Juan!
Nicely done once again Juan.
The perfect example of why TCAS was installed. It worked this time. Saved lives. The controller was talking to UPS and should have talked to Delta 1070 first. Great job by the pilots. You too Juan
I'm sure that situations like this become the basis for training scenarios in ATC school. Controllers need more jump seat time to see how pilots hear the transmissions in the air while multitasking.
That has been revoked due to COVID... 5 years later, cockpit familiarization training is still unavailable.
@@DaedricFaZe While not as common as it once was, some air traffic controllers still have the opportunity to occasionally ride in airliners to experience the pilot's perspective through programs offered by airlines or their own ATC provider, allowing them to better understand the pilot's viewpoint during flight operations and decision-making processes
Thank you, TCAS, and thank you, pilots, for listening to it and acting on it.
Excellent set up to the approach. Much more clear to me now what happened.
Great coverage as always Juan!
“Tower? Let me know when you’re ready to take down a number”
LOL!
Nice supplement to Victor's video. Many of his videos are self explanatory; this one needed more explanation -- and your video did that.
Wow. This is nuts. Thank you for covering this.
When I first saw this video a few days ago I thought it was another click bait video where people think planes are nearer to each other than they actually are but jeez looking at the graphics provided by Victor it’s far from that! Well done both crews, that was so close. As you say if you are an Aviation enthusiast (like Justin) you know all the normal flight patterns in your local area and you know when things aren’t right.
Great analysis video Juan
Thank you for the breakdown! I am an amateur radio operator and I run the radio for a couple of nets a week where I handle 3-10 calls at a time. I get call signs confused every time (Sometimes it is because they double and sometimes because I have fat fingers.). I make more mistakes when I am a bit tired. Luckily, everyone I am working is terrestrial. No one is in danger of getting in trouble.
Hi Jamie from a fellow ham (WB8YTD).
@ Hi! KB7QOD here (It’s Kirk…I know…weird user name). 73!
@ Hi Kirk!
Juan I love the way you present these situations!
20 odd years ago I was on a flight from Seattle to Juneau. I happened to be looking out of the window when a second Alaska jet crossed from left to right and passed underneath us with no more than a couple hundred feet! The whole plane(s) should have diverted to Las Vegas to see if I luck still held! Bob L
" Clear and a million" for the weather at Phx Int...
'....this may be why 3 of the top 10 most heavily used General Aviation airports are in the greater Phoenix area...Dear Valley, Falcon Field and Chandler
Quite true. I joked with a friend one time that Deer Valley has more traffic than Tulsa International Airport. Deer Valley averages 1100 operations a day, Tulsa, a commercial airport, averages 240. Falcon Field has around 1400 a day.
@@kallsop2 If one was to draw a triangle between Deer Valley, Falcon Field, and SDL Scottsdale, I used to live dang near dead center. Day or night, if I went out into the backyard, I could see low flying aircraft on approach or departure. One time, when family was flying into the Valley to visit, I went outside for a smoke and saw what was probably their aircraft right over my house, so I knew it was time to head to PHX to pick them up. :)
Paris DeGaulle has a rule that if within 70 degrees of final and not cleared, we are to intercept final regardless. We need to implement this rule in the US. Anyone that regularly flys into US hub airports has had something similar happen. I think such a rule could help mitigate the threat and relieve pressure on ATC.
Very very scary situation,thanks for the information Juan
Juan , Fantastic breakdown.
Thank you
I bet those pilots absolutely crapped themselves when the TCAS warning went off... very lucky
More than likely, they saw it coming and were prepared to respond. The comms could have been more concise and correct, but they both got the word to ATC. Most importantly, they both flew the profile correctly.
Normally you get a TA first the an RA. No ass crapping.
Thanks Mr Browne. Great report.
My home airport is John Wayne (SR20) and our two parallels are 500 feet apart. I did a tour of the tower there a few years back and talked to the controllers about that. They said you would be surprised how many GA aircraft do late final turns and encroach on the parallel. Maybe because I was trained there, it really surprised me. My instructors POUNDED into my head not to fly a 90 leg base leg and always be aware of overshooting 20L centerline.
It’s always a good idea to slow down as you approach the localized and ATC is behind or super busy.
I think the whole intercept procedure should be updated, there are too many manual instructions that shouldn’t be necessary.
Delta didn't sound happy
They never do….
Big D needs to pull their head out and call the field if they have it and or speak up! Obviously ATC dropped the ball but wtf how about doing some pilot $h!t. I’m happy Juan touched on that at the end of this video.
They made her job about twice as hard by not using proper phraseology. It should have been stated by Delta to the controller "Delta 1070 unable current altitude RA CLIMB or RA DESCENT". Once they are clear of the conflict, and TCAS will tell you this, they should have stated to the controller "Delta 1070 clear of conflict" clearly letting the controller know that she was once again in control of the aircraft altitude not the TCAS. Pilots have some of the blame in this as well, does not look good on their part!
@@twister4489 Probably former NWA pilots. Everyone in that crummy organization had a chip on their shoulder. (Says the former NWA Mesba Mechanic)
Thx Juan and Victor for this review...
Something to note that I found very impressive when I found out personally. I was flying the Fenix A320 in MSFS out of LAX when someone flying a fighter came to “escort” me. The TCAS actually gave me all the proper RA’s and even moved the aircraft in response when I was still trying to figure out what was happening. They did an awesome job at modeling everything.
TCAS is easy to model. The algorithm is simple and the pesudocode is published in the standard.
Aircraft are more difficult to model. That's why I use Xplane rather than MSFS.
Thankyou Yuan, It's Pressure enough in the Cockpit without dealing with such situations, I don't blame ATC as a mate of mind once a RAF ATC now working out of Heathrow, I talk to him often in runs over there.
The pressure these guys are under immense pressure, Andrew took me through a tour of both Tower and Main Area Control Room and you can feel the Pressure yet in a calming sense of way.
Areas of separation over an Airfield cam be Rainy, Clear but in the end so much is going on your concentration is Transfixed on your own Airplane whilst listening to ATC and trying to maintain some visual outside with Air Traffic.
Fatigue can be an issue, Andrew worked Heathrow time and time again 16 hour days (I kid you not), That's a hefty Workload, So even in Bright Light things can be a little hairy.
I was on approach to an Lis Angeles in a 747-400 when about Five miles out I heard an (Won't Mention) Airline MD82 was given an advisory to hold short of Runway at Hold Mark as inbound 747 inbound on your left is now Four Miles from Landing.
The MD82 nosed out out was Turning into the runway, We Geared Up, Reset and maintained Runway Heading advising ATC.
We were assigned a 360 back to Runway whilst MD82 Departed once we landed we were asked I have a Number for you to call, I said wait until I'm clear of the Runway where trying to Short Finish this Fill Out for a Short Final A330 which we did and the A330 Captain said thankyou kindly Sir, I just replied no problem, When the number was given again I refused it and I explained to him the reasons why (I have been in an ATC Environment for a Two Whole day session, I don't blame you Sir and at times things are misunderstood in the Cockpit., Yes He should have at least looked to his left, Clear Day, Our Full Landing lights On, It happens and we had plenty of time to go around.
These ATC Personal do a Magnicent Job.
Regards
John
TCAS WORK , saludos to Victor a great Iberian
Excellent break-down, and thanks Victor. Thank goodness for TCAS!
I'm surprised that UPS requested to switch to RWY 8. Cargo is on the southern edge of the airport, so RWY 7R is the closest to where they need to go. But I'm not in the cockpit, so I don't know what they were dealing with that they would need to cut the distance and/or time like that.
I continue to be a amazed in aviation at the missed opportunities for additional safety, in this case sequencing Delta a little behind United. Life first, time and money second! Cheers.
this is where pilots need to be proactive and have total SA in the pattern....I cannot tell you how many times when I was flying at UAL where I had to inquire when approaching the final approach course should I turn to intercept and 100% of the time it was yes turn to intercept....ATC already has you on a 90 degree intercept so you know their intent is to give you a final vector to intercept and to not have you blast thru the final unless they tell you that is their intent..... you just cannot blindly blast thru a final especially when there are parallel runways involved with other airplanes....Controllers get tunnel vision as well and sometimes need a prompt...
Exactly!
I wonder what the crews were thinking, or if they even knew where the other plane was. Did they see the conflict coming? They probably did and were thining "we do this every day here" and then the airwaves got tied up with UPS at exactly the wrong time..........which is why having a normal practice of turning two airplanes to the exact place in space, at the same time, isn't smart no matter how many times you pull it off.
Frequency was tied up with ATC talking to UPS. Couldn't get a word in edgewise. You say you "cannot blindly blast thru a final" but procedurally they can't just decide to intercept final on their own. Guidance in US is to maintain assigned heading until given clearance to intercept. In other countries guidance is to intercept final in this scenario. I think the other countries have it right and the US should change to match.
@@Skepilotthat's a good point until you can see someone else coming down final, relative position not moving in the window but growing larger by the second. Pilot is responsible 1st to See and Avoid in a VFR environment. Safety of flight makes it pilots obligation to "make it up".
@@roberthayes9241 I've been flying parallel approaches into class B airports for over 30 years. We're frequently vectored in what appears to be very close proximity to other aircraft all the time. We can't just play ATC and make up our own clearances because that other plane "looks close." Often times it seems close laterally to us, but they have us vertically separated. And sometimes they vector us in unexpected ways to avoid threats that we don't even know exist. If we make up our own clearance we could conflict with another plane that we don't know about. They're supposed to have the big picture, not us.
On a 90-degree vector with the other plane on a long, straight-in final, it would not have been a situation you describe of "relative position not moving in the window but growing larger by the second." We don't know if they even saw the other plane. On left base they're likely looking left to get the runway in sight, and they weren't even advised of the other traffic by the controller! It's more likely the UAL saw the DAL coming than the other way around.
ATC is also supposed to stagger traffic on parallel runways so IF they forget the final vector it doesn't create this situation. The controller screwed in multiple ways.
ATC error, plain and simple.
Using properly the frequency is a piece of art. The best is always to say a short message to design every airplane doing the same way, as landing. Number one, number two, etc... is a good way we use in glider's landfields.
To ask a 360 degrees turn to a motorise plane is used frequently to avoid a risky situation.
Good flies everybody and don't forget to always watch outside your planes.❤ from 🇨🇵
Juan, thank you for your great content about aviation safety. I wanted to point out that lately there are some spam accounts that are masquerading as people that are thanking you for your content in the form of comments on your videos, when in fact their profile pictures show that they are spam accounts that are peddling awful content. You or a moderator in this channel may need to take some action in order to kick these spam accounts from your channel. I just say this because I appreciate your work and your channel should only welcome genuine people who are here for your great content.
Those spam bots are common on many channels and there’s not much that can be done about them other than ignoring them. They do provide additional activity on the video which helps the algorithm.
Those bots are everywhere. I question whether it helps but just in case I report them.
John, the creator is able to moderate their channels comments to some degree. The comments can definitely be deleted.
These bots comment on almost every channel of decent size and reach. Thankfully, most of the channels I watch regularly are proactive about removing the spam. It’s a much better look for newer viewers and any who find it annoying. Compared to ignoring it and using it to try appease an algorithm… which could be a negative in the long run
@@cpzmelbs the problem is that there’s apparently a never ending supply of these bots so deleting them just takes valuable time from the channel owner or moderators.
Folks, remember Juan here has a actual flying job with an airline out of Dallas flying a 777. Just ignore the bots.
Thank you for the walk through and the graphics. Super informative from pilot and also atc perspective. 👍
UPS didn't cause a distraction. The controller failed to do their job putting lives at risk!
correct.