I think that, given the same circumstances, I would.

Judgment is a cruel mistress. I sometimes hate the fact that it is being regulated out of the cockpit.

 

Seconded all the way around...

 

Ah, the fear of going missed in DCA.

I get it, but is it safer, to land or go-around?

Could you make a safe landing in this situation as these pilots did? Absolutely.

But there are two questions you'll be asked- what happened and why did you land?

If you went around, there is only 1 question asked, what happened? If you landed, there is rightfully a lot more questions and for good reason. You may feel as if the decision is beyond reproach but obviously it won't be will it?

I ask because think about AMR 1420, different situation for sure but the lesson learned was to not force a landing and to flip the previous mindset of we're going to land unless XYZ to now we're going to go-around unless we have XYZ.

Like I said, I get landing, I find it easier to run around on the ground in ORD or EWR without talking than to go to YYZ and be led by the hand everywhere. But, you're landing an airliner into a peculiar situation to say the least and don't forget, your bravado rights are compromised when you are strapped into a part 121 airliner.

 

Something similar happened in Lleida, Spain on Sunday. A Ryanair flight arrived 30 minutes early and the tower controller wasn't on duty yet. The pilots circled for half an hour until the the controller came to work. I'm not sure why they didn't choose to land at first. But I guess if the issue at Reagan is fatigue related, then the Spain incident has nothing to do with it.

 

Let's see if the FAA does an emergency revocation of the controller's ticket. Ha, fat chance. This government is out of control. Ray the Hood has to go!

 

Another "Emergency" that ended with nothing happening. Just another case of the multiple layers of redundancy yielding a safe landing.

No, I am not excusing the loss of comms, but the result proves we have a pretty good system.

 

Maybe not all the way around. I wouldn't have landed. DCA isn't uncontrolled simply because the controller doesn't answer - how would anyone assume the controller had nodded off?

I'd rather go around and buy some time to figure it out and eventually head to IAD/BWI if needed.

If there was a disabled vehicle on the runway that they plowed through, we'd all be saying, "why did these guys land without a clearance!!??"

 

Or a terrorist inspired reason why there was no answer.

 

I remember going into DCA in the evening push last year when they were having all the flooding problems and the tower equipment was going in and out of service. Potomac was telling all of us not to be surprised if we couldn't get radio contact with tower as it had been a problem all day and if needed look for a light gun signal. True not identical as that would be an old school clearance but, not the first time DCA has had tower issues. Also, if you read the story you'll see that the first plane DID go around when they couldn't get an answer and recontacted Potomac for help.

 

These guys need new duty time regulations. They also need ALPA "at the table" making sure that their new duty time regulations only allow for an additional 2 hours of work per day...just to ensure less fatigue.

Carl