2011-08 · NASA ASRS report 966497
A B737-700 flight crew reported landing without clearance after a wake vortex encounter distracted them on final.
I was the pilot not flying on this leg; which was the last leg (fourth) of the first day of our three-day. We were being vectored for the visual approach landing north in SEA. There were several other aircraft being vectored to parallel runways and we were following a B737 about five miles ahead. Approach did not assign a runway until the final vector to intercept final. They told us to follow traffic ahead and intercept 34R. We complied and about 30 seconds later they told us we were cleared for the visual 34C. I asked clarification on the runway assignment. They apologized and reconfirmed 34C. We were now three to four miles in trail of traffic ahead and the First Officer began to slow and configure. On about a six mile final and about three miles in trail; we flew into some moderate wake turbulence. The First Officer disconnected the autopilot and I asked him to fly slightly above the glidepath. We completed the Before Landing Checklist and the rest of the approach was uneventful. I did not catch the fact that we were not sent over to Tower. We still landed on Approach frequency and switched over upon clearing the runway. Tower cleared us across 34R and we taxied uneventfully to the gate. My attention was diverted with the runway changes and wake turbulence on final. I normally turn on the Outboard Landing lights with the clearance to land from Tower. As we cleared the runway and I took the aircraft; went to stow the speedbrake; and turn off the landing lights (outboards were not on); I realized we were not on Tower. The First Officer made the frequency change as we cleared.
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.