Complacency is a big enemy in any field, including us Pilots.
The aircraft was cleared for an approach which would of been the ILS for 28R. Being cleared for an approach is difference than cleared to land. Two separate clearances coming from two different controllers. Anyways that's not important here. And yes for those who don't think we look out the window to land you're wrong. There's a visual segment to an approach if weather permits meaning we look at the window and see all the pretty lights and maybe spot the hotel we are staying at
. We are totally capable of landing ZERO ZERO visibility which means we don't see shit, however, those conditions were not present at that time and I'm not getting into Zero Zero landings. Now lets get to the story.............Picture an extended runway centre line that has vertical and horizontal tracking capabilities that operates on a VHF frequency . This course (centre line) can be intercepted at various distances but normally 10-15 miles out. Sometimes shorter. Anyways at the time of landing I don't think SFO was pushing tin, therefore, everyone was equally spaced out. Sometimes the receivers on the aircraft don't track the extended runway centre line. VHF frequencies are subject to line of sight which means obstacles can interferer. There are different holding points on taxi ways that aircraft hold short before take-off since passing that hold short line will interfere with the ILS system signal causing inaccurate tracking (vertical and horizontal) issues to aircraft on landing. Anyways I don't think that was the problem and the instruments were reading properly or maybe not. Who knows. Since the aircraft was lined up with the taxi way which was slightly right of runway 28 would display a cockpit indication of a track bar needle not centered and off to the left. To correct we point the nose of the aircraft to the left to intercept the exact inbound course which would of been probably roughly 280 degrees. Something like that. When you're on the ILS system the aircraft is designed to land 1000 feet from the threshold of the runway, therefore, I don't think it would of clipped all the airplanes that were holding short in SFO.
Anyways if everything in the cockpit was tracking properly the needle would of been slightly off to the left since they were not exactly positioned on runway 28 Inbound course. An alarm should of gone off in someone's brain saying " why isn't my f'n needle centred ". Another angle to consider, sometimes we give ourselves challenges and test our skills to see how accurate our hands and feet are so we go back to the basis and ignore the automation. I do this a lot but I never ignore the Automation. This is a perfectly safe to do. The airplane does a lot and it's important for us Pilots to keep our hands, feet, situation awareness and scan sharp. That's getting hard to accomplish since the cockpit has become pretty advanced.
One last thing and I'll end on this note. Our Duty days are 14 hours long. I depart at 7am. We start one hour before departure so the clock starts at 6am. So we can legally fly up until 8pm. With a 7am departure I start my morning at home by 3am going over all the weather for the selected airports and making sure my alternate airports are looking good. Yes for every airport there's a back up airport that's required. I also need to make sure our pre-determined fuel loads look good. Turbulence, Weather, systems moving in and how that will impact the flight.....bla bla bla....I care for all that shit and I consider my life very important. After we land it takes about 1-1.5 hours to complete post flight duties and get to the hotel. Lets recap...I woke up at 0300am. It's now 8:30 and I'm finally in my hotel room. On paper I worked 14 hours, however, it's been over 17 1/2 hours and finally getting dinner. 10 hours of rest from the time we landing to do this all over again the following day. I just cant go to bed the night before at 6pm. My eyes close around 11-1130pm. So on a day like that I normally get 3-4 hours of sleep before my early morning flight. That's why I love afternoon flights.
Guys, we fly more than you think. This business is really stretched. We breath cabin air equally too 6000 feet pressure altitude. Our days our long and being home for 10 days straight are gone.
If I had to guess they had a perfectly functioning aircraft. What happens to humans when we get tired? What starts to suffer? Safe to assume judgement and decision making diminishes? Pilot fatigue is a big issue in Aviation. Bigger than you think. I'm 41. Been flying since 20. That's all I know. I'm a rich pilot now....a tired one too.
PS - Lets wait till the reports come out. I had a few of my boys tell me they did a go around a 1000 ft. We have a 3-1 rule on landing. You're still 3 miles out from landing at that altitude. Don't always believe the media. They don't have access to aircraft recording capabilities. They true altitude of how close they were will be released soon.
WB