Strange Variation in LGA Approach Last Night

My friend's aircraft returning from IAD, was using the Expressway/Visual Rwy 31 Approach. All looked usual until reaching Flushing Meadows. Instead of turning north over the Park and following the Van Wyck, his aircraft continued in a westerly direction passing over Hillcrest, Fresh meadows, then turned west of Cunningham Park to Kissena Park then straight-in to Rwy 31. I thought this was some sort of noise abatement procedure but aircraft before and after his, used the regular approach. Also, there was no need for arrival spacing as the aircraft preceeding his was down several minutes before and no aircraft was awaiting departure. Has anybody seen this approach variation before?

Maybe the flight crew needed a couple of minutes to deal with something in the cockpit, maybe finishing up a check list or checking some indicator that looked funky and they asked to extend their pattern? Could have been something on the ground as well - maybe tower asked them to extend for extra spacing to allow for some ground movement in the vicinity of the landing runway.

I closed our LGA ramp tower last night and watched everything land upto about 1230AM. All aircraft where flying what appeared from my own 4 eyes to be the everyday Expressway visual approach to 31 and JFK was landing on the 22's.

Just curious Speedbird1 is this your friends description, did you see it with your own eyes, or did you watch it online? If it was the third it is possible that was depicted was not entirely accurate, something I see fairly often.

Respectfully,

LGA777

It's not unusual to see some wide turns on the Expressway Visual. Normally you see them make the left turn at Shea Stadium, but if the arriving plane is too close to the one in front of it, or if the previous arrival is slow exiting the runway, I've seen planes fly well east of Main Street before turning back.

Could be a number of things...

Most likely ATC asking them to extend for spacing or some other reason...

You could PASSUR the flight to see the exact ground track...

On a related note, one of my good friends was/is a regional pilot (on mil leave for UPT, go figure), and he said one of his company's crews (he wasn't on it, so secondhand story) got lost on the Expressway Visual at night, and kept flying East on the L.I.E., causing some sort of major traffic conflict. Apparently the F/O kept telling the Capt they had to turn, but the Capt was insistent on them having to extend to maintain ground track. Needless to say the Capt is no longer an employee at said airline.

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Originally Posted by USAF Pilot 07

...got lost on the Expressway Visual at night, and kept flying East on the L.I.E., causing some sort of major traffic conflict...

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Important safety tip - when you see the lighthouse, you went too far :shock:

Here's more info on the strange approach on Jan. 5. As far as spacing, the previous arrival was more than 5 miles ahead and it appears that there were no other aircraft in the vicinity. The exact time of this incident was 11:10 to 11:14PM, (2310-2314) according to Passur. The flight was ASH 7231 arriving from IAD. The aircraft was a CRJ7. The approach was definitely extended-out. Check it-out on Passur. I tend to think there may have been a problem in the cockpit but there's no way of knowing.

So you're basing this on one particular flight? Individual flights can be given unique instructions or permission for a variety of reasons, and its not uncommon.

My observations:

The Expressway Visual 31 has you crossing DIALS at or above 2500', and then proceeding visually via the published ground track to the runway.

Looking at the trend of aircraft flying the EXPVIS31 approach before your friends', most are below 2000' right after their turn on to the L.I.E. - your friend's aircraft is not.

So why not, and why did it not descend until almost abeam the approach end of RWY31? Could be many reasons. Maybe the aircraft landing before it had a problem and was holding on the runway, so instead of having your friend's aircraft fly the approach and go missed, they extended it. Maybe ops was doing a runway check and needed a few minutes, so ATC extended it.

Something else that's interesting...

Looks like your friend's aircraft turns back inbound to LGA around where the Clearview Expressway and the L.I.E. intersect. Looking at the LOC31 approach plate http://204.108.4.16/d-tpp/0813/00289L31.PDF, the FAF for the approach is FABRY which is 5 miles from the end of runway 31, which coincidentally is just about where the Clearview EXPWY and the L.I.E. intersect. Altitude requirement at FABRY is at or above 1600'. Looks like your friend's aircraft is stepped down to about this altitude, then holds this, until established on the inbound course (i.e. the localizer) past FABRY.

Not having been there, or having any knowledge whatsoever about what was going on, my educated guess based on reviewing PASSUR and the approach plate is that your friend's aircraft ultimately ended up flying the LOC31 approach.

Now as to why, again, could be many things. Maybe neither pilot had flown this approach before, and had no clue what to look for/what to do and by the time they figured things out, they were too high to make a "safe" normal landing, so opted instead to tell ATC they were unable the visual as published.. Could be the pilots lost visual contact with the runway. Maybe LGA wanted to test the LOC or was running some operational test. Again, could be many things, but I doubt it was some sort of "emergency" situation in the cockpit affecting the safety of flight. Winds were out of the north, so if anything (especially if there was a situation before DIALS), the crew most likely would have opted to declare and emergency and flown a straight in to RWY4 (rather than flying away from the field and over crowded residential areas at 1700').

Hope maybe this can shed some light on to more of what could have happened. If there's any way to pull LGA ATC tapes from this time, it would more than likely solve the mystery...

Very observant of you and very thorough. It seems that ASH 7231 seemed to fly over the FABRY INT in Queens just as you say. It does appear to be a LOC Approach to Rwy 31. The reason is a puzzlement. I was thinking that maybe the visibility was getting poor so the crew requested a LOC Approach, however the aircraft following ASH 7231 used the regular Expressway/Visual 31 Approach.

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Originally Posted by Speedbird1

Very observant of you and very thorough. It seems that ASH 7231 seemed to fly over the FABRY INT in Queens just as you say. It does appear to be a LOC Approach to Rwy 31. The reason is a puzzlement. I was thinking that maybe the visibility was getting poor so the crew requested a LOC Approach, however the aircraft following ASH 7231 used the regular Expressway/Visual 31 Approach.

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Weather was most likely not an issue. Visibility was 10 miles or greater with ceilings about 9,000' for the entire period - I checked on the NWS website.

Again, the reason it flew this could be a number of things. It's not abnormal for aircraft to do things that to most people who don't fly look nonstandard.
Could be as simple as the crew requesting the LOC approach because they felt like flying it instead of the visual one (currency reasons perhaps)...

Too bad we can't get tape recordings of the time period. It would more than likely clear things up....