P I L O TS VS A I Q2. In cruise, FL380, when a distinct smell of burning is noticed from the cabin. You don pressure-sealing oxygen masks and commence an emergency descent towards your nearest airport. You are approaching from the west and the runway orientation is 09/27. The weather for RW09 is reporting a 17kt tailwind, but your company operations manual restricts you to 15kt tailwind. The smoke is getting progressively worse, and the cabin is now full of black acrid smoke. What do you do? Pilot A Initiate an emergency descent immediately and inform air traffic control (ATC) of the situation. Given the increasing severity of the smoke and the tailwind limitation, opt for Runway 27 for landing. Communicate with ATC about the decision to land on Runway 27 due to the tailwind limitation, and request priority handling. Prepare the cabin crew and passengers for landing, emphasising the need for a quick and orderly evacuation upon landing if necessary. Monitor the situation closely, be prepared for an emergency evacuation, and ensure the safety of all passengers and crew. Pilot B This is a scenario where the captain has to balance the urgency of getting on the ground expeditiously and safely against a company operating SOP. The regulatory responsibilities of the commander as per OMA specifically state the commander shall, in an emergency situation that requires immediate decision and action, take any action they consider necessary. In such cases, they may deviate from rules, operational procedures and methods in the interest of safety. There is a confirmed and uncontrollable fire onboard the aircraft that is now directly affecting the health and safety of the passengers, and most likely the structural integrity of the aircraft. In this case, I would be inclined to land with the excessive tailwind rather than spend an additional five to seven minutes to land on the reciprocal runway. Paperwork and subsequent investigations can be completed later on the ground, but not if the aircraft and crew are not alive to do so! Q3. Weather at destination airport is OCV001 and RVR reported is 200/150/200. You are fully configured for a CAT3B (no decision height) approach when the aircraft experiences an erroneous localiser signal. You initiate a go-around and advise ATC. The flight crew are unsure whether this is due to an aircraft technical problem or vacating runway traffic. Your primary alternate airport is experiencing similar weather conditions, but your secondary alternate is on minima for Cat1. You have five minutes of fuel before losing the option of the secondary alternate and 10 minutes total fuel before needing to divert to primary alternate or commit to destination. What do you do? Pilot A Grey-area thinking here. Time is critical as fuel state is low, but we do still need to collate more information to build a mental model. We have time for another approach at our destination (five minutes), but if this approach is unsuccessful, we have lost the option to divert to our usable airport, the secondary alternate. We may then be stuck in a scenario with two airports that fuel will allow us to get to, but with both in Low Visibility Operations, unable to safely make an approach. The primary question is, do we know why the localiser signal was erroneous? If we can be sure that it was due to vacating traffic, perhaps with a large vertical stabiliser disturbing the localiser, then we can consider another approach at the destination. If we cannot ascertain this positively, then we should divert to the secondary alternate airport, as we should be able to land safely with the aircrafts degraded technical status. 22 THE LOG Sum 24 pp20-23 AI Spot the Autopilot.indd 22 13/06/2024 12:56