Air carrier flight crew reported performing a go-around after the First Officer followed the malfunctioning localizer that resulted in the aircraft being off the approach course.
Synopsis
Air carrier flight crew reported performing a go-around after the First Officer followed the malfunctioning localizer that resulted in the aircraft being off the approach course.
Narrative
Localizer lateral deviation/malfunction (?)1st approach: The FO was PF. Kicked off autopilot at the FAF (DNNIS). Localizer immediately veered to the left. The FO followed Flight Director (FD) constantly chasing" it. After catching the localizer again; it kept veering and when we broke out around 400 feet we found the approach lights off to our right. Go around was initiated once back on a lateral track. Go around had no issues and was successful.2nd approach: Captain is PF. Before starting the approach; ATC asked aircraft to report if they are experiencing any excessive localizer deviations. I did notice Aircraft Y ahead of us on Multi-function Flight Display (MFD) and it seemed they also were veered to the left.I am a new Captain and decided to take the approach and landing as I was not sure if this was an equipment issue. At FAF; I kicked off the autopilot and noticed once again an immediate veer to left however I did not chase and it came back to normal. This was at 1500 - 1200 feet. I held course all the way down. At around the same time altitude as last time (350 - 400 feet); the FO called out "localizer to the left." I once again did not chase it; we broke out right above the approach lights on course. Landed safely."
Second reporter narrative
The ILS for Runway 4 in LGA is a hand flown approach from the final approach fix. Light chop on the approach. From about 500 feet above the ground; I noticed that I was slightly to the right of the localizer. I was flying a Flight Director (FD); although it seemed as if I was continuously to the right of the localizer. I decided to fly slightly more left than the FD called for; since it seemed like my current input was not correcting into centerline. I ended up farther to the left of the localizer than I needed to be. When we broke out of the clouds at about 350 feet; the approach lights were too far to the right. Air Traffic Control called our go-around letting us know that he got an alert on our approach. We executed the go-around. Once we were being vectored back to the approach; Captain took controls to shoot the next approach. On our second approach; the localizer again showed that we were slightly to the right of course. However; when we broke out of the clouds; it seemed we were right over the approach lights. The Tower mentioned on our second approach that he was having issues with planes coming out of the clouds left of the center of line.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.