Flightradar - some poor passengers really aren't landing at Madeira at the moment

[cakeorwine]

2 landing attempts and still not down.

I think it's windy there

Flightradar24: Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map

I've just checked, the flight time from Tenerife to Funchal is 1 hour 6 minutes and they've been in the air for double that!!

Im so nervous watching it attemp!

Noooooooo

And abort

Nooooooo TUI aborts again.

Oh no

Oh man! No go for TUI! Those poor poor passengers! Surely it must need to land somewhere else now

They got down to 1300 ft that time.

Looks like TAP got lucky with the timing.

That Pilot’s nerves must be shot

Is it back to Tenerife?

I reckon so

I think I'd be crying by now.
I don't suppose the pilot is feeling that great either, especially as TAP managed it.

I feel like everyone's nerves on that flight must be!

It must be horrid for the pilots when some make it first attempt !

Back to Tenerife… at this time they need to consider air traffic restrictions late at night. They need to land…. Poor Tui!

The documents I have are a bit out of date but 1300 feet is the decision altitude for at least one of the instrument approach procedures to that runway and the cloud tonight has been on occasions at 1300 feet or below...so they either got to 1300, couldn't see the ground/runway and went around, or wind became a factor (again).

They must have been really unlucky with the timing..

Poor pilots, the nerves and pressure! It must be quite hard to actually say "In my professional opinion, we cannot do this safely". Then again, that attitude will form part of the training I suspect.

I wonder what the percentage of aborted landings is - and how it varies with weather etc>

It's always too bad because at least some of the decisions we've seen today will have been rule based.

For example for Funchal for that runway there will be a wind limit...so if ATC say the wind is above that, then decision made....if there's a minimum descent altitude and you can't get sight of the required lights then again, it's decision made...

That's not to say it's always stress free, there are areas when whether to continue or not is more a professional opinion thing, but sometimes having hard rules is useful.

One more flight due in at 1am which is another TAP flight from Lisbon. Nothing after that until 6am when the morning flights start.

Can you actually see the planes trying to land?

No, not the actual flight itself like you would watching a live video stream. Its a radar picture showing details of the flight, a stock image then the ground speed and altitude etc. (You see the altitude increase or decrease as they come in to try and land or climb again uf aborted)

Like this:

Poor TUI's passengers - apparently they were meant to arrive Friday! I know safety comes first but it looked like they were on a slightly easterly trajectory to the planes that succeeded in landing, you wonder why they couldn't land when TAP did. I'm no pilot though! The crew must be very frustrated too

I can't see anything wrong with TUI's flightpath.

There's a problem at Funchal in that the airport location and terrain prevents the typical long straight approach towards the runway that you see at most airports.

That means for instrument approaches you fly a track displaced to the east of the runway centre line, done deliberately to avoid the high ground on the island to the north east of the airfield.

It's only when the aircraft gets to a radio beacon/GPS waypoint on the headland near d'Abra Bay, and also only if they are visual with the runway, that the aircraft can be turned right, onto a more westerly track, towards the coast, to line up with the runway.... OTOH if nothing is seen at that point then it's a go-around and basically a turn to the left to keep clear of land, which is what TUI did.

TAP flew the same easterly trajectory as far as the beacon/GPS waypoint, but then they turned for the airport so it looks like they simply got lucky with timing and the weather. By the time TUI had a go the weather was outside limits again.

HTH.

Morning all..

For those still interested it is looking better this AM. The wind is in a slightly more favourable direction (so wind speed limit not too low).

Also the TAP aircraft that landed at just before 0800 was able to leave the more easterly trajectory demanded by the instrument approach (discussed above) quite early on and turned directly towards the runway about 10 miles out, so cloud base and visibility must be much improved.

Fingers crossed it stays that way…must get something productive done today.