2006-10 · NASA ASRS report 713033
AN ACR PLT RPTS RECEIVING AN ERRATIC ILS SIGNAL ON BWI RWY 10 ILS. AFTER LNDG; UPON INQUIRING; ATC INFORMED THEM THAT THE ILS WAS ON RWY 28.
I; THE FO; WAS THE PF. WE WERE INBOUND FROM THE SW TO BWI. WE WERE CLRED DIRECT TO COLUM INTXN ON THE ILS 10 TO BWI. I HAD BRIEFED ILS 10 TO VISUAL; SO WE WERE PREPARED FOR THIS. WE HAD THE ILS 10 TUNED AND IDENTED BY MORSE CODE. WE ALSO HAD THE APCH PROGRAMMED WITH GPS ON THE ELECTRONIC MAP. I ALSO HAD THE RWY IN SIGHT. I LINED UP WITH THE RWY; AND IT APPEARED THAT WE HAD A LOC AND GS SIGNAL; AGAIN WITH A GOOD IDENT. ALL 3 OF US CONFIRMED I WAS HIGH AND THAT THE SIGNAL MUST BE ERRONEOUS. THE LOC SIGNAL WAS ALSO WAVERING WILDLY. WE DISREGARDED THE ILS AND CONFIRMED RWY IDENT WITH THE GPS. WE ALSO XCHKED OUR APCH PROFILE WITH ALT/DISTANCE. I PROCEEDED VISUALLY AND STABILIZED WITHOUT GS. AFTER LNDG WE QUESTIONED THE CTLR ABOUT THE ILS. HE SAID IT WAS TURNED ON THE OTHER RWY. WE TOLD HIM HE SHOULD HAVE NOTIFIED US OF THAT; AND HE SAID 'ROGER.' I FOUND THIS TO BE VERY DISCONCERTING BECAUSE I WOULD RATHER HAVE A FLAGGED APCH SIGNAL; RATHER THAN AN ERRONEOUS ONE. THIS IS TRUE ESPECIALLY WITH RECEIVING GLIDE PATH INFO AT NIGHT. THIS SEEMS LIKE A HAZARDOUS SITUATION; ESPECIALLY SINCE WE HAD A GOOD IDENT ON THE ILS. THE CTLR CLRED US TO AN ILS FIX TO SHOOT THE VISUAL. HE MADE NO MENTION TO US OF A NEGATIVE ILS AVAILABILITY ON THE RADIO; ATIS; OR OTHERWISE. THE APCH WENT FINE SINCE WE CAUGHT THE CTLR'S ERROR; AND XCHKED OUR APCH INFO. WE CONTINUED STABILIZED; VISUALLY; AND WITH GPS CONFIRMATION; BUT I WOULD HAVE MUCH RATHER HAD SOME GLIDE PATH GUIDANCE ON A NIGHTTIME VISUAL APCH.
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.