2002-08 · NASA ASRS report 558127
A B737 CREW; ON APCH TO ARUBA; (TNCA) DISCOVERED THE ILS GLIDE SLOPE WAS INOP AND THAT THE 'PAPI' TO RWY 11 WAS DIFFICULT TO INTERPRET.
THE PAPI L AT ARUBA IS DIFFICULT TO INTERPRET. WHEN YOU ARE HIGH YOU CAN SEE SOME SHADES OF RED AND WHITE IN ALL THE PAPI LIGHTS. WHEN YOU ARE LOW YOU ALSO SEE SHADES OF RED AND WHITE. THE DARN THING IS DIFFICULT TO INTERPRET. ON TOP OF THAT THE WX WAS BAD ENOUGH THAT WE HAD TO SHOOT THE ENTIRE ILS DME RWY 11 APCH AND TO OUR SURPRISE; AS WE TURNED INBOUND ON FINAL WE DETERMINED THAT THE GLIDE SLOPE WAS NOT WORKING. NO NOTAMS; NOTHING IN THE ATIS; AND APCH CTL/TWR SAID THEY HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING IF THE GS IS WORKING. I THINK WE NEED AN IMMEDIATE MSG IN THE FLT PLAN MESSAGES FOR AUA; FOLLOWED BY PERMANENT NOTE IN THE ACR PAGES FOR AUA SAYING THE PAPI L FOR RWY 11 IS DIFFICULT TO INTERPRET AND THE GLIDESLOPE FOR THE ILS DME RWY 11 MAY BE OUT; WITHOUT ANY WARNING FOR NOTIFICATION. CALLBACK CONVERSATION WITH RPTR REVEALED THE FOLLOWING INFO: RPTR COMMENTS MIRROR THOSE CONTAINED IN HIS ORIGINAL RPT. HE HAS NOT RETURNED TO TNCA NOR HAS HE SPOKEN TO ANYONE WHO HAS; SO NO CURRENT STATUS RPTS REGARDING THE ILS OR 'PAPI' AT ARUBA ARE AVAILABLE. SUGGESTED LIGHT INTENSITY OF THE 'PAPI' MAY HAVE CAUSED THE VISUAL DISTORTION.
More incidents for this aircraft family
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
Loading the flight search…
Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.
We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.
Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.
Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.