Originally Posted by
shfo
Also, we are paid to do things that are not in the books. What happens when you are shooting an ILS to 12 in MIA with the departures shut down due to storms east and south of the airport? On 1 mile final the guy who preceded you blows a tire on the rollout. Tower says you can switch to 8L or go around into the storm just southeast of the field. This happened a few weeks ago to us. We landed on 8L. If you cannot do that you have no business being at a 121 airline flying people around.
The question is, does your company allow you to change runways (not side step) at 300' while on final without briefing it? If so, you're legal.
And if you opt to go around, and TSRA's are sitting south and east of the airport, then a left turn to the north should suffice and you can divert to FLL/PBI or hold and you're paid by the hour. You probably weren't out of fuel as then more questions should be raised as to why you bypassed more suitable alternates prior to reaching a somewhat TSRA surrounded MIA. Nice and simple. You probably can come back around and try 8L then as there is evidently no TSRA's west of the field in this example. I mean you're not a hero for doing a low and close in runway change, its commercial airline flying and not Afghanistan or Iraq here.
I mean AMR 1420 was the classic example, look it up. If you're not stabilized then go around, if you can't be down in the TDZ either give it up and put it down now or go-around.
BTW, in ATL most pilots I fly with brief two approaches per arrival, in case we get the runway you normally want or the one you really want. Briefing close in sucks, so brief and then make an abbreviated brief (about 5 sec) and run two items on the checklist and you're done.
This is really not that hard.