http://www.charlotteobserver.com/topstories/story/1125715.html

14 hour duty day and dense fog. It was nasty out in CLT that night. Glad nobody got hurt.

 

Interesting. Sounds like "george" was misbehaving during a CAT II or III and the crew tried to salvage the approach.

 

A flight crew having to "salvage" and approach after 14 hours on duty is a recipe for disaster.

 

Our ops specs said all CAT II/IIIA-B approaches were autolands. Maybe AA's ops are different but most operators use autolands for Cat II/III.

IF the autopilot was acting up and IF they continued and landed out of a CATII hand-flown, I hope they filled out a NASA. And even then it sounds like a possible violation.

 

So how about them new Duty/Rest Rules........

 

We'll just have to wait to see what the information from the DFDR will reveal.

Although usually via the auto-land system, a landing from a Cat II is may be mannually accomplished.

Good news is that no one was hurt.

 

Not true for FedEx with no notams or inop equipment runway lights etc an autoland is only required below 1200 rvr. This is assuming no chart notes etc.

 

Again, that is ops specs. OUR ops spec said ALL Cat II/III were autolands. And more, all NPAs were to be flown via autopilot. Hand fly Cat I and visuals.

Your mileage may differ (especially for operators with devices such as HUDs)

 

I landed in CLT that night about 1245am. The fog was some of the worst I have ever seen. I was in a MD88 and we set up and briefed for the CAT3 and did the autoland. I do have another issue regarding the fog. CLT has no SMGS. No problem there. The problem comes once you enter the ramp!!! It is virtually impossible to tell where you are and which way you need to go to get to the gate. The ramp controllers are no help due to the fact they cannot see you. It was a little freaky cause using the taxi lights made it worse due to the heavy fog, and turning them off, well you know!!

 

I have had some issues with the localizer courses in CLT, mostly on 18C and 36C. I have seen the needle fluctuate as much as a full dot in both directions, though generally the deviation favors one direction. Supposedly the ILS areas are protected, but this has happened to me multiple times when these areas should be protected. I could see the plane staying on the needle, only to have the needle shift significantly in one direction, though not so much that one would consider a missed approach as the only real option. Usually I just find that the plane will meander down the localizer. But, on CAT II and beyond, this becomes a far more serious problem. At very least, this unwarranted change in needle deflection could have been enough to to trigger the pilots' decision to disengage the autopilot. I have done in a few dozen times myself. Add in the weather, fatigue, and the problems having to make lateral corrections introduce (more likely to needle chase and to over or under compensate), and I can see this situation developing quite reasonably.