2011-07 · NASA ASRS report 958009
CRJ50 flight crew arriving AZO reports the field in sight to ATC and is cleared for the visual approach. The crew actually had BTL in sight; but ATC sets them right. The LOC CDI was deflected to the right which confused the First Officer.
On a heading of 270 at 2;500 FT MSL approximately 6 miles southeast of AZO; the First Officer (pilot flying) and myself both saw the field. Approach Control was notified and a visual approach clearance was given. We were then told to contact AZO Tower. Tower cleared us to land. First Officer stated; 'FMS is wrong; green needle is already through the course.' He then looked outside at 3 o'clock; saw BTL; and began turning. The green needle for ILS 35; IAZO 110.9; showed we were west of course needing to turn NE. When First Officer looked out and saw BTL more clearly he continued turn. I listened to the Morse code for a second time and confirmed it was correct as Tower called and queried our NE heading. ATC stated; 'It looks like you are heading toward Battle Creek.' I then looked up from my chart; noted AZO at 10:30 position to the First Officer; and answered ATC. With AZO positively in sight; Tower told us to turn back to a 270 heading; I confirmed we had the airport; and he again cleared us to land. An uneventful landing than followed and no altitude deviation occurred or TCAS event. All this happened after being cleared for the visual approach to Runway 35.Weather was clear and seeing BTL added confusion to our visual approach. The green needle for the ILS 35 into AZO was deflecting in the wrong direction; giving the First Officer indication we had flown through the localizer. I should have had my head up looking outside more to add clarity. I was aware BTL was close; not sure if he did.
We were approaching AZO from the southeast and were told to go to AUSTN; descend and maintain 2;600 FT; and to contact Tower. During that time we both came up green data tuned and identified the ILS frequency of 110.90. The CDI showed a full scale deflection to the right as we looked outside we saw BTL in the right window and started a right turn towards BTL. ATC came across the radio and told us we were headed to BTL; so we then asked for a turn back to AZO. ATC assigned us a 270 heading and were cleared to land [Runway] 35 at AZO. We then landed uneventfully.I believe there was a NAVAID problem because we had a full scale deflection to the right; which was incorrect and was disorienting at the time. The only suggestion I would suggest is to make sure the NAVAIDs are working correctly.
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.