Yes, autolanding, or if the pilot was using ILS (Instrument Landing System), then this problem would almost never happen, as they would be aware there was a problem.
However, most pilots eschew automation especially on short finals, and prefer the 'hand fly' the aircraft in so that they can maintain complete control over the aircraft. Not a bad thing, and pilots want to actually fly the plane at crucial times.
When hand flying on final approach, your eyes and senses are 75% outside the aircraft. All you are worried about is your airspeed, your rate of descent and whether the runway is remaining visible at all times. Your eyes are darting from your primary instruments in front of you to the runway outside, and your arms and legs are busy working the throttles, control stick and rudder pedals.
Maps and charts are well stowed away at this point. In fact, once you enter the main airport traffic pattern, they are put away as all the details should be memorised by then. At best, the pilot will have the approach plate on his/her control column. But this just gives the instrument approach paths and radio frequencies etc. and not really a detailed topography of the runways/taxiways.
Ironically, AFTER the plane is on the ground, the non commanding pilot will usually pull out the airport plate which details all the taxiways and routes to gates etc., especially if they are unfamiliar with the airport and have to find their way around.
I have to disagree about the maps and charts being stowed away at this point.
I personally can only think of one 121 certificated carrier in the US that isn't using an EFB setup. These are typically mounted to the side of the pilot and there's no reason at all they can't still be on and open to either the airport diagram or the approach in use. In fact I frequently do this and do reference it on approach to parallel runways and to reference the turn offs for taxi.
As this discussion progressed, the lack of progress in the FAA adopting technology was addressed. It seems to me that the FAA is completely missing the boat on tons of safety to be gained with these EFBs due to the bureaucracy. My carrier was recently certified for EFBs and the vendor has the capability to have GPS geo-referenced charts but because of the complicated certification process the airline chose to get certified without to save money and time. As part of that we also received devices without GPS so now there's no way it's coming until the next cycle of devices. Personally I can't understand why there would need to be additional certification for something GA pilots have been using for years now.
I am going to say you are probably more right than me. I haven't flown in over two decades, so things are bound to be different/better nowadays and procedures and safety improves.
Take my replies here with a grain of salt and as being 'old school'. :)
Fantastic explanation, and the question on my mind the entire time is "but why??"! Surely the copilot can look at a map (when I say map I don't mean a piece of paper -- I mean a digital one with GPS and everything) and see their trajectory while the pilot is landing, right? Like I'm imagining there should be something on the plane that shows them their trajectory and the runway information. If there is, why isn't it telling them when they're going the wrong way? If there isn't, why not? Is the technology simply behind, or is there a safety reason or something?
Ah, I think you are picturing something like a HUD (heads up display) that they have on fighter jets? That would certainly go a long way towards solving the issue, but commercial aircraft don't have a HUD display system (though I believe the 787 has a partial HUD display now).
Commercial aircraft have a HSI (horizontal situation indicator) located front and center on the panel in front of the pilots. This instrument presents about 12 distinct pieces of information to the pilot, but once again, on short finals, the pilots is mainly concerned with (1) airspeed (2) altitude (3) rate of descent on this instrument. All of which are displayed on the left and right edge of the HSI in the form of moving bars. The information in the centre with relation to position and orientation is discarded as unnecessary 'noise' under this extremely high workload.
You are right in that the co-pilot has to work in conjunction with the pilot to ensure safe flight. Indeed, in many cases, it was the co-pilot (or non flying pilot) that alerted the flying pilot as to an imminent danger. But that doesn't always happen either. Take the case mentioned elsewhere here of the worlds worst aviation disaster. In that scenario, the junior co-pilot of the KLM jet notified the Captain (who was one of the the most senior pilot in KLM at the time) TWICE that he thought the PanAm jet was still on the runway, only to be ignored.
Yes, I don't know the types, but any kind of display that can show the relevant information would seem viable in 2017 :-) so it seems the main answer to "why?" is just "because adopting such technology is abysmally slow" rather than because it's inherently a bad idea? (Thank you for all the responses again! They're excellent.) (Edit: just saw your other comment, please feel free to ignore this if it's redundant.)
Yes, because getting ANY type of new technology on airplanes certified by the FAA (as well as the relevant air safety authorities in every other country in the world) is a laboriously long, slow and expensive exercise. It is sad, but the bright side is that is seems to be getting better nowadays as compared to when I was flying decades ago.
Also, iPads have become a vector for bringing new tech into the cockpit, since it's not physically installed in the plane and therefore doesn't require certification. You can pull up charts, set courses and upload to the autopilot.
This is actually kind of terrible. A compromised ipad could either compromise the planes actual vital systems for one, any time 2 systems are in communication a compromise is possible, and for two it could introduce a subtle numerical error.
I can't imagine a scenario where this ought to be allowed.
Sort of, at least in general aviation. Some of the newer avionics have bluetooth interface. For instance, popular GTN-series nav/comm can accept flight plans from Garmin Pilot software running on iPad.
Now, the iPad part is not certified, but the nav/comm (including software) is.
What you are describing is called PFD (Primary Flight Display). HSI is just a bottom part of it, basically combined heading indicator + CDI/VDI + (sometimes) moving map. But anyway, unless you are on instrument approach (or at least have it tuned in on your avionics), the HSI won't show you whether you are lined up with the runway or not.
I don't think a map or chart would necessarily solve the problem. The taxiway runs parallel to the runway, in the same direction, is the same length, and is similar in width.
Similar to how a map or GPS won't stop you from turning down the wrong way on a divided highway. Or how there have been many cases of people following GPS and turning onto railroad tracks that parallel roads. https://www.google.com/search?q=driver+turns+onto+train+trac...
It's not like it happens every day, so I expect there is some significant thought going into how to mistake-proof this particular problem.
I suppose that a GPS in an airplane should always take the precision of the instrument into account. If it can't determine which lane it approaches, perhaps it should show a warning sign, and/or highlight the lane that should be taken.
We can use gps to guide munitions moving at a very high rate of speed to very small targets. I'm guessing missiles and planes have better gps than your phone.
> Surely the copilot can look at a map (when I say map I don't mean a piece of paper -- I mean a digital one with GPS and everything) and see their trajectory while the pilot is landing, right?
It's not like the pilot doesn't know there is a parallel taxiway. Of course there is. They would be (subconsciously anyway) looking for it to complete their mental map. It just went wrong in this case.
You wouldn't even have needed a fancy automated system to realise you were looking at a taxiway in that particular situation. There were four big aircraft on there, with position lights and taxi lights and everything. And apparently visibility was good. It was just a spectacular brain fart.
While the system you're suggesting might give better situational awareness, it might also be a dangerous distraction in other cases -- or be wrong for some reason. So more tools aren't automatically better.
In this case the existing system actually worked flawlessly: another controlling instance (the tower controller) discovered the error, took appropriate action, and all that happened was a 15 minute landing delay and a good story. Probably happens more often than we'd care to imagine.
> Like I'm imagining there should be something on the plane that shows them their trajectory and the runway information. If there is, why isn't it telling them when they're going the wrong way?
Well, there's the ILS (instrument landing system), but pilots like to land manually. IIRC it's recommended these days, just to remain in training. I suppose it's also fun.
Also, ILS might be wrong somehow (interference, technical defects, the pilot accidentally entering the data for the left runway when he was told to land on the right, etc).
So the truth is this was just human error, and that kind of thing just happens. You know the saying: if you make a system idiot-proof, nature invents better idiots.
The copilot is also busy with checks and other tasks, it's not like (s)he's just with crossed arms watching the show
However yes, it's the copilot's job to double check what the pilot says and to warn if anything's not what it should be (like trying to land on a runway)
All you need is an universal (ICAO) visual indication for "this is a taxiway, do not fucking landing here". For example, a stripe of alternating red and blue lights.
I was going to ask about the ILS, which I assumed pilots always used for lining up their approach. I watched a friend of mine who was a pilot, punching in ILS codes on a training simulator and I remembered it myself years ago from Microsoft Flight Simulator 4. (now that I think about it, I think he even mentioned that he didn't often use ILS).
It seems like a pretty critical system for lining up an approach on the right runway. FS4 even had a training mode where it would display the ILS bars on the screen without needing to look at the instruments. You'd think some commercial airliners would at least put this in a heads up display, where it would be totally obvious you're lined up with the taxi way since the bar would be glued to one side or the other. Don't Navy pilots have a similar HUD for just their vertical approach angle?
Yes. I flew actual planes, and loved playing with MS Flight Sim too, and the number of times I WISHED we could have the same sort of heads up information on the real thing was quite funny.
(Also, would have loved SLEW MODE on the real thing, but that is a conversation for another time and dimension) :D
A pilot is required to have at least 3 takeoff and landings in the type of aircraft he is to be operating in the preceding 90 days.
And I say sort of because an autopilot coupled ILS approach down to 100 ft above the runway still counts. This mean that as long as the pilot set up the automation correctly the airplane will have him lined up and on proper vertical path at 100 ft. He can disconnect autopilot and gently set it down.
So one, mostly automated, landing per month is all that is required.
Could be, but there have been many cases of pilots missing an audible warning while under heavy workload too.
Most notably the Adam Air(?) crash in Indonesia, where the crew were so intent on debugging a faulty minor flight computer that they simply didn't hear the the warning klaxon indicating that the autopilot had become disengaged and the plane ended up rolling over, entering a spin and crashed into the sea.
However, most pilots eschew automation especially on short finals, and prefer the 'hand fly' the aircraft in so that they can maintain complete control over the aircraft. Not a bad thing, and pilots want to actually fly the plane at crucial times.
When hand flying on final approach, your eyes and senses are 75% outside the aircraft. All you are worried about is your airspeed, your rate of descent and whether the runway is remaining visible at all times. Your eyes are darting from your primary instruments in front of you to the runway outside, and your arms and legs are busy working the throttles, control stick and rudder pedals.
Maps and charts are well stowed away at this point. In fact, once you enter the main airport traffic pattern, they are put away as all the details should be memorised by then. At best, the pilot will have the approach plate on his/her control column. But this just gives the instrument approach paths and radio frequencies etc. and not really a detailed topography of the runways/taxiways.
Ironically, AFTER the plane is on the ground, the non commanding pilot will usually pull out the airport plate which details all the taxiways and routes to gates etc., especially if they are unfamiliar with the airport and have to find their way around.