I often share air traffic control clips of interesting interactions between pilots and air traffic controllers. Well, here’s one that I’m not sure what to make of, because the circumstances are so strange.
Continue reading: GlobalX Pilots Struggle To Land Airbus A320 In Phoenix… But Why?!
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Lack of experience on display for all to see. All the morons who decry the 1500 hour rule, take note.
Just sounds like barely competent pilots (I think there were two - both were non-native English speakers with an accent, at one point I think a second pilot with similar accent came on - not 100% sure about the second pilot). They just seemed to have their hands full and were nervous. Flying the computer rather than simply flying the plane would be the most obvious explanation. This guy did not sound confident or experienced, he sounded..scared.
All the ATC controllers were fine, professional, were not snotty or obnoxious at all. If you think one of the controllers was out of line you have no business being anywhere near an airplane. Sure, you could hear the controllers managing things were a little annoyed (justifiably so) but never called out the guy. This is a vast, gigantic airport, easily visible from many miles away even at night - at least it's to anyone with some experience looking for an airport in a city at night.
Note: when controllers start telling one plane after another "I'll call your base" it usually means somebody (somebody ELSE) has been screwing up their sequence and they have to direct people to deviate from standard practices to try and keep things working before it all falls apart complete.
I found it noteworthy that after going around, the Global pilots always asked for the handoff to Center (who would then hand-hold them by feeding them vectors), rather than simply staying in the VFR traffic pattern and hand-flying the plane around the runway for the next approach, with the runway in view the whole time. To anyone who is comfortable flying the damn plane, and who knows where the airport is (it's hard to miss...) simply staying in the VFR pattern without switching to Center and then switching back...that's the easy, natural and confident thing to do. Note that's what the Allegiant pilot did. But the Global pilot seems distracted, confused, and (most telling) didn't seem to know where the airport was - suggests to me he wasn't looking outside and was fixated on some gizmo he was way too dependent on. One of the first things any good pilot learns is to "fly the #$%*! plane" first, worry about other stuff second (in order: "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate").
What I see and hear are pilots who don't know WTF they're doing. Controllers were all doing their jobs well.
What do you make of this GlobalX A320 situation in Phoenix?
Okay it's my turn to pull a Dim Tunn which is to say to handwave the question (I don't really know what to make of this GlobalX situation!) and veer into an entirely different topic. Except for me it's not Delta. It's Big Law.
You see - everybody on this travel blog is interested in travel. Not the hostel or Motel 6 kind of travel. Not even necessarily the Hampton Inn kind of travel. People on this blog are interested in traveling in mass-market luxury.
Up until around 10 years ago this kind of travel was extremely accessible through miles and points. I personally remember getting into the game when the deal was you could redeem 50,000 Hilton points for a Bora Bora overwater villa or the DoubleTree Suites Times Square on New Year's Eve which would otherwise cost you $2,999. [Fun fact: Skadden's former offices in Times Square were an excellent vantage for the ball drop.]
Today with the miles and points game having gone mainstream and overcrowded, even 500,000 Hilton points aren't enough for those redemption, even though earnings rates on credit cards have not changed. What this means is the kind of upscale travel miles and points were famous for enabling is ever so slowly going away. Maybe not ever so slowly, actually. It's already going away.
The bottom line is if you're a young person today interested in traveling in something other than basic economy you can't rely on miles and points to still offer any semblance of value when you become an adult and can actually travel. What you need to do is enter a specialized profession that pays at least $250,000 at the entry level. Big law firms obviously do. So does high finance, medicine, big tech software engineering. You need to be gunning for one of these jobs. Anything else and get ready to fly in the middle seat with only a personal item because that's all that Spirit or Frontier allow you to bring for free.
Why am I not surprised. GlobalX is a charter airline that subsists on deportation and rendition flights for the U.S. Government.
GlobalX is a charter airline that subsists on deportation and rendition flights for the U.S. Government.
Oh is that so? Then I hope GlobalX executives suffer from chronic constipation.
Global X is just a secret tool of the cream sickle Mussolini. Let them and everyone employed by them rot in hell!
How I wish some commentators would be on future GlobalX flights ex USA. Your TDS is just…
When is someone going to actually reach out to Skadden and let them know some 16 year old is posting AI generated dribble on blog posts using their logo? It's becoming quite funny. Or not?
"Later on, the pilots . . . requested to hold their “present position” (which… when you’re in the air…)."
When pilots request (or are assigned) to hold present position, it doesn't refer to hovering in place; rather, it means entering a standard hold with their present position as the holding fix.
This is an US airline, so the 1500 hours rule applied. Didn't help much, it seems. If you get crap training, you can keep flying for a century and still be a bad pilot. Most of the world doesn't have the 1500 hours rule and doesn't seem to have any safety issues because of that.
When you can only hire pilots willing to fly deportation flights, this is what you get. The Kid Rock of pilots.
An airplane is “unstable” on an approach when it is not in the right landing configuration (landing flaps and gear down), approach speed, and power setting for landing at a 1000 ft (500 ft in some cases) above the landing elevation. Airlines come down hard (‘tea and biscuits” with higher ups) when these rules are violated, because airplanes touching down with excessive speed have lead to runway overruns and a jet engine at idle needs about 8 seconds to spool up in case of a (possibly unexpected) go-around, during which time the airplane keeps descending.
Unstable approaches are often the result of lack of briefing, preparation, or lack of familiarity with the airport.
The second go-around, I don’t know, but it could be a crew unfamiliar with the airport (it’s a charter airline whose crews may not fly there that often) and possible stress. Some crews are also reluctant to fly visual approaches (“eyeball” it) and are used to be fed onto the Instrument Landing System (ILS) by controllers or flying a pre-programmed procedure from the Flight Management System (FMS), so-called “Children of the Magenta” (the colour of the planned track on their instruments).
First attempt, they were unstable, too high with too high sink rate.
On second attempt it seems ATC hold them too high due to traffic, and got too high again. On final in landing configuration, hight above landing elevation should be 1000 feet at 3NM.
By the way, "hold at present position" is a standard request from pilots or from ATC. It is a request for joining a holding pattern. Without further instruction it means starting a right turn with a 1 minute inbound leg on the heading you started the hold with.
Hi @Lucky,
Wanted a tip you on some news regarding Global Airlines, it seems like they are starting pre-sales for their (possible) first flights...
Here is the article I found (in Dutch):
https://www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl/nieuws/categorie/2/airlines/global-airlines-voert-in-mei-eerste-passagiersvluchten-met-a380-uit-start-pre-sale
The Airbus is an auto flight aircraft. The autopilot is turned on shortly after takeoff and turned off on short final. When conducting a visual approach you load the instrument approach for the runway as backup. Were they having problems loading the approach or were they trying to shoot a close in visual approach without the aid of an instrument approach and maybe the autopilot? The type of visual approach they were trying to do can be challenging in a commercial size aircraft but as professional pilots they should have been able to do it.
While the dinosaurs continue to defend this obsolete practice and we customers have to face the consequences.
This would never have happened if a computer was flying.
No careless pilot, no missing passports, no drunk pilots, no power trip pilots, no landing at a wrong airport, departing from taxi way, no sick, no DEI blame game, no childish condescending game with other humans (yes you ATC), to name a few.
Best of all to those obsessed with 1500 hours. Consider the average 12k planes flying at any given moment. Collectively computers would pass that 1500 hour requirement approximately every 7.5 minutes.
Just sayin.
LUCKY - You buried part of the lead.
100% the pilots of that plane were iffy at best flying.
BUT, ATC... yikes! 3 planes very close together, 1000' apart, climbing/descending, opposite direction... one of them the GlobleX that was having all sorts of trouble following directions/flying the plane. THEN pointing these iffy pilots at VFR AC opposite direction under 1000'. YIKES!
Perhaps the apparent incompetence was deliberate? Maybe they’re doing deportation flights actually had relevance. The crew had accents. Airlines have been known to suffer work slowages in the past. Think about it. Maybe their embarrassment was actually heroics.
As is typical for US controllers, they ratchet up the drama and editorials increasing the workload for an already stressed crew.