Is this is a fair framing? My read of it is that Lufthansa's enforcing a minimal standard of safety—one that's higher than both other airliners' and the ATC's. They're not incapable of doing visual landings at night; rather, they have a policy banning it in non-emergency situations. It (naively) seems reasonable to me not to budge on this kind of thing. (Unless the inflexibility creates new forms of safety issues, in which case I have no idea).
Also, I'm mindful there was a recent near-disaster at SFO with exactly the issue this Lufthansa policy mitigates: a non-ILS landing attempt at night, which attempted the wrong runway due to confusion over visual markers,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Canada_Flight_759
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14741605 ("SFO near miss might have triggered ‘greatest aviation disaster in history’", 414 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18071966 ("Abstract of the NTSB Report on Air Canada flight 759's taxiway overflight at SFO", 127 comments)
I'm not aware of any other busy airport in the US that has the same parallel runway situation SFO has, with two parallel runways only 750 feet apart both doing landings. Plenty of other large US airports have parallel runways, but they're further apart and they're staggered between landings and takeoffs.
The ATC situation in the U.S. is dire. It would be insane for an airline to reduce their safety standards especially in the U.S. right now.
It's also not like SFO doesn't have other LH flights arriving who all have the exact same rules, so it could've hardly come as a surprise.
Finally, the pilot was in some ways quite considerate. He could have just waited and declared a fuel emergency that would have really screwed things up for ATC.
I am usually the first to point out the cost of safety measures. But the increasing number of near-misses in the US suggests that it’s maybe not the time to brush off the risk.
If there are 200 airlines landing at SFO, you surely cannot expect ATC to make exceptions and argue about this or that. We need upfront, transparent and written procedures and policies.
Luthansa should notify SFO of their requirements before departing. SFO would have the right to reject their "safety" policy. And we wouldn't have this sticky situation.
It seems very clear from the transcript that the pilots are just working with a stupid rule, not that they are incapable of actually doing it.
A pilot who could only land with the help of ILS couldn’t possibly be assigned to a transcontinental flight that lands in the evening right?
Many pilots do this, and you don’t need a special ILS clearance or its corresponding separation to do so.
If nobody obeys the speed limit and it is in fact safer to exceed the speed limit, why do we have speed limits? Why does the government make it illegal to do the safest thing? And why does the public put up with it? Why is there no MADD-like organization protesting the insane government policies that put everybody at risk?
I don't have any data to show that 65 is safer than 75, or to show that 75 is safer than 65. I don't know if speed limits are based on any real safety data. But I'm pretty sure that your rationalization is not. This is my little (misguided) campaign to combat that argument. Even if 95% of the population embrace it as a plausible excuse for breaking rules and to malign rule-keepers.
Asking for an airport to break its arrival sequence because your airline has a different policy than the airport is bonkers.
It's an admirable thing when somebody has to go out of their way and go through some contortions to make critical mistakes.
Don't think they intended to arrive at the busiest time
Flow Control is also part of the problem: they knew that aircraft was en route many hours before, they should have sequenced the airplane correctly. But this is also a result of staffing and priorities at the FAA. Buttigeg is essentially incompetent. A small town mayor of debatable accomplishment in even getting road potholes repaired being elevated to lead the U.S. Dept of Transportation was mind-blowing. If he deserved any cabinet role, HUD would have been the closest fit, but we all know that all presidents have a tendency to appoint people as political favors rather than subject-matter excellence.
Ask controllers and pilots who have been in this business for more than a few years and the giant belly-flop of the FAA is profound. Controllers are far less experienced and greatly overworked than they were pre-2020.
And interestingly, the FAA does not follow ICAO rules for visual approaches — the international standard requires consent of both the pilot and ATC — it’s not something that ATC initiates unilaterally. For those interested, here is a helpful document on the consequences of the FAA/ICAO differences: https://ops.group/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/21atsbl04-...
And here is an article that is significantly more informed on this incident than some frequent flyer blog written by backseaters rather than aviation professionals:
