Brutal: Unprepared Viva Pilots Approach JFK, Try To Land On Occupied Runway

New York has some of the world’s most congested airspace, so it’s important for pilots to be prepared, brief the approach, etc. Here’s an example of two airline pilots who seemingly approached New York Kennedy Airport (JFK) completely unprepared, in a way that’s rather concerning.

I’m not sure if there was the perfect storm of issues that somehow caused the pilots to get into this situation, or if this level of unpreparedness is common at the airline. On the plus side, kudos to the JFK controllers for keeping their calm, and not being jerks, for once!

Viva A321neo approaches JFK with clueless pilots

YouTube channel You can see ATC has air traffic control audio and a visualization of an interaction that happened at JFK on the early afternoon of December 18, 2025, as Viva flight VB100 was approaching the airport, after a roughly 4hr20min flight from Mexico City (MEX). For those not familiar, Viva is a Mexican low cost carrier, and the flight was operated by an Airbus A321neo with the registration code XA-VXR.

If you’re into this kind of stuff, I’d recommend watching the below video, since a key part of what makes this interesting is the level of confusion and poor communication of the Viva crew.

The Viva plane was landing on runway 13L, and not only is New York airspace complicated, but this is an especially challenging approach, as it requires a last minute turn. But what’s kind of shocking is how you can tell from early on that the pilots clearly hadn’t done their homework, and were just winging it (no pun intended):

• The approach controller cleared the plane to fly direct ASALT, to cross ASALT at 3,000, and to fly the RNAV Z RWY 13L approach (I understand many people may be not be familiar with the details of this, but the point is that each of those details is important, and should be acknowledged by the pilot)
• The pilot simply responded by confirming they were cleared for the RNAV runway 13L approach, and didn’t read back that they were supposed to fly direct ASALT
• The controller reminded the pilot of that, though the pilot had no clue what she was talking about, and then simply responded with “roger,” not actually confirming the details
• A while later, it was clear the pilot still had no clue what he was supposed to do, so he asked the controller to spell out ASALT, which is the initial approach fix for 13L and 13R
• The pilot was then landed over to the tower controller and was cleared to land on runway 13L, and he read back those instructions correctly
• In the meantime, a Turkish Airlines Boeing 787-9 was cleared to line up and wait on runway 13R, the parallel runway to 13L, on the opposite side of the airport
• At that point, the tower controller (yes, it’s *that* guy, though he’s really calm here, so it’s hard to tell) was about to clear the Turkish Airlines plane for takeoff, but you could hear someone in the background in the tower saying “don’t do it, Viva lined up for 13R”
• In the meantime the Viva A321neo lined up for runway 13R and got as low as 500 feet, before the pilot called a go around

From there, the Viva A321neo shot a similar approach, which was successful. Then the pilot was given landing clearance again, and I got a good chuckle out of how the controller emphasized how they were cleared to land on “runway 13 *LEFT*.” As you’d expect, once on the ground, the pilots got a number to call, for a possible pilot deviation.

This incident was super embarrassing and concerning

The first thing that stood out to me about this interaction is how incredibly calm all the JFK controllers remained. Often they’ll go from zero to 100 over a lot less, while in this case, they’re just like “meh.” So kudos to them for that. I was confused hearing that one controller not raising his voice, for once.

As far as these Viva pilots go… what on earth was going on here? I’m not suggesting they’re bad at flying planes, but they’re certainly not good at preparing for approaches, including to some of the busiest airspace in the country.

Individual mistakes happen, but this just comes down to unpreparedness, as they obviously hadn’t briefed the approach. For those who may not appreciate how simple the instructions were, they were given the RNAV Z approach for runway 13L, and were told to fly direct ASALT.

If they had been looking at the map (which they should’ve), they would’ve seen the initial fix for this is ASALT. That didn’t come out of left field, and that’s an instruction they should’ve been expecting. Instead, that caused a ton of confusion… how?!

As a result, the communication was really poor, with the pilots only partially reading things back, and then following up way too late to ask things to be spelled out. As you can see in the above video, the approach for runway 13L and 13R is incredibly challenging, given the last minute turn it involves.

So to see them attempt that approach and then line up with the wrong runway is really bad. Also, there are some situations where you can sort of understand how someone may end up approaching the wrong runway. This approach shouldn’t be one of these. It’s not like 13L and 13R are right next to one another — quite to the contrary, all the terminals are between the two runways, so there are a lot of visual clues, and they’re quite far apart.

I’m not sure if this comes down to a training issue at the airline, two very indifferent pilots being paired together, or what. Going back a few years, a Viva plane attempted to take off from a taxiway at Chicago O’Hare Airport (ORD), in what can only be described as another strange incident for the carrier.

Bottom line

A Viva Airbus A321neo approached JFK with two pilots who were clearly unprepared. They couldn’t follow basic instructions, acted as if the initial fix for their planned approach was gibberish, and then tried to land on the wrong runway. All the while, JFK controllers remained rather calm, which is a rare treat.

While this wasn’t as close of a call as we’ve otherwise sometimes seen, it is one of the stranger incidents we’ve seen in some time, in my opinion.

What do you make of Viva’s approach to JFK?