Author Topic: strange thing that I saw yesterday  (Read 6639 times)

Offline fulanito

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strange thing that I saw yesterday
« on: July 30, 2008, 02:55:12 PM »
Yesterday while driving on the NJ Turnpike, I saw a heavy aircraft(looked like a 767 from distance, not sure however) that was initially aligned just fine on the ILS for 22L(at least from the looks of it). The strange thing though was that during short final it abruptly started banking hard to the left, and then after maybe 5 seconds a hard turn to the right. It looked pretty scary, like the pilot lost control over the aircraft for a moment. However, during the last part of the approach, it got lined up again with the localizer. My question to you(hopefully it's not a too stupid question) is, what couldve been the reason for this? Could the aircraft have been on the final approach course for 22R at first(which to me might seem odd at KEWR), when the controller then maybe instructed the aircraft to enter final for 22L? Or could it have been that the aircraft was actually on the ILS for 22L, and then the controller gave some instructions to the pilot to deviate from the loc? And is this even possible during the last phase of the approach for the atc to give that kind of instructions?

And what is the distance limit for an aircraft on final to enter another runway?

Alex
« Last Edit: July 30, 2008, 02:59:47 PM by fulanito »



Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: strange thing that I saw yesterday
« Reply #1 on: July 30, 2008, 03:01:47 PM »
Probably a common sidestep maneuver to the parallel runway. 

Read about sidesteps here: 

http://www.faa.gov/airports_airtraffic/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim/Chap5/aim0504.html

(Scroll down to 5-4-19 on that page)

Offline Jason

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Re: strange thing that I saw yesterday
« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2008, 03:23:54 PM »
Could have been a number of different things... sidestep to 22R, circle to 29, or a few S turns on final to increase separation and reduce the impact of compression on the final.

Offline fulanito

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Re: strange thing that I saw yesterday
« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2008, 03:49:08 PM »
it might have been the S-turn, but it looked pretty scary since the a/c was on such a short final. If it was a sidestep, it must have been to 22L. Thanks for your quick and helpful answers
« Last Edit: July 30, 2008, 03:55:15 PM by fulanito »

Offline Squawk 7700

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Re: strange thing that I saw yesterday
« Reply #4 on: July 31, 2008, 09:32:14 AM »
I was thinking "S" turn also for the reasons Jason pointed out.

Offline dave

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Re: strange thing that I saw yesterday
« Reply #5 on: July 31, 2008, 10:31:11 PM »
Sidestep slightly more likely than s-turns.

Offline air727

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Re: strange thing that I saw yesterday
« Reply #6 on: August 02, 2008, 11:08:43 AM »
newark has a circle to land procedure for runway 29 as was stated in one of the responses. It's pretty standard. I have seen aircraft make that same hard left then turn it right to line up with 29

Offline fulanito

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Re: strange thing that I saw yesterday
« Reply #7 on: August 02, 2008, 12:11:29 PM »
newark has a circle to land procedure for runway 29 as was stated in one of the responses. It's pretty standard. I have seen aircraft make that same hard left then turn it right to line up with 29

Yeah that I know, but im pretty sure that wasnt the case since it got lined up with the 22s again. If an aircraft circles to line up with 29, it goes further out to the east, further out than this particular a/c. My guess now is that it made a sidestep approach to any of the 22s.