How do aircraft land in fog?!

Gosh, watching your channel made me look back on one of the flights I was on, and a cold chill runs up my spine. We were landing in Warsaw Modlin about a decade ago, when it was still a tiny post-military airport. It was winter, it was snowing and we were in the cloud for an awfully long time. The plane started to come down for landing and we were still in the cloud - or so I thought. I was sitting next to the window, looking out, so I saw perfectly that when the fog finally cleared, we weren't over the landing stripe. We were about 30 metres over a residential area. I could see the branches on the trees and people below, and the plane suddenly lurched up and climbed back. The pilot, leter, made an announcement that he'd missed the airport due to the fog. Back then it was an exciting heh moment. Now I am thinking how close we were to being on a show like this=_=

Old joke, aircraft logbook: Pilot: Approach OK, auto-land very rough. Mechanic: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

This man is amazing. I love how clear he is about things he talks about. The best mentor you are Sir.

I love how a lot of mentour videos I know the basic premise to the answer, but whats given is so much more in depth. The answer could just be "cat 3 autoland and yeet it in" and it would answer most peoples questions. But instead its a full 30 minute show on it.

I was in one of these Cat III landing last week. It was freaky. I was on a 737-800 landing in Indy International. The visibility was two feet (I am sure it was more, but that's what it looked like) I could barely see the engine under the wing and I was as close as one can get to it. All the sudden the aircraft begins to flare and the thump of the wheels said we had hit pavement, but with no visual of the ground to provide prospective and scale, it felt like we were plowing into a mountain. Once we came to a stop the whole cabin erupted in cheers and people were visibly relieved, as well as I. Intense

Red and green pillows exactly like the position lights! Nice!😃

red cushion on your port side, Green on your starboard, nice touch!

In the late 1960's Merced (California) was totally fogged in for 6 weeks. Castle AFB (six miles north of Merced) launched all of their B-52s, but it was too foggy to land them. For almost a month they had no planes, because of fog!

I was the passenger of an aircraft trying to land in dense fog (about 15 years ago) at  Halifax International Airport.  I had a window seat and it looked like we were only 10 feet above ground (about to touch down) but suddenly in the last minute, the aircraft unexpectedly  made a quick ascent again, and we were directed (by ATC) to Maine, USA!   Thankfully the pilot got us safely to Maine and eventually I got home safely.   But he told us afterward that he found out in the last minute that we were overshooting the runway (due to poor visibility) so that made them not land at that  moment but go up again.  He said ATC told him "do not try that again, it is too risky".    The airport at that time was under construction and some of the lights were not in operation.  With the lights it could have no doubt been possible to do a fog landing that day.  Anyway I was grateful that all was well in the end!

The kind of logical, clear thinking and situational alertness that Mentour Pilot emphasizes is really a lesson for pretty much anyone doing pretty much any job or task.

I remember once, years ago, we were returning from Las Vegas to MSP, Minneapolis flying in an L-1011 Tristar. Coming into Minneapolis, it was winter and there was a very low cloud ceiling and a snowstorm. Looking out the windows in the cabin we could only see clouds. I could feel the aircraft descending, I thought we were going to land, then it would shudder a bit and level off. I really wasn’t sure at times if we had touched the runway in a complete fog or if we were just going around again. This happened several times. When we finally did land, we did break through the clouds very low and made a great landing. I think everyone was relieved at that point as it seemed to take forever. This was possibly the most frightening landing I’ve been through at my home airport. MSP does often have problems in the winter with snow, ice, and low clouds.

doggy is chillin in the background

Mentour you are very gifted at explaining complex subjects. If I were ever to pursue fixed wing aviation I would literally seek you out and persuade you to be my instructor. Bribes, coercion, blackmail, whatever it takes. But things that spin over my head are my interest for now so you don’t need to worry. I’ll say it again, the professionalism you bring to aviation and the amazing explanations you bring to the curious among us is all so appreciated. Thank you so much.

A few years back I was on a flight into a regional with heavy fog and the pilot did 4 attempted landings before going around at a few hundred feet before he gave up and did a divert to a major, now I know why - thanks mentour

This makes me think of a flight from California to Boston (for what it's worth in relation to this topic of discussion), that when we got to Boston we had to circle quite a while. As the visability had to be a 0 visability, remembering how mega low it was. As I was sitting near the window watching out the window, and you could see nothing, and then all of sudden their is the runway with the Jet touching down right then. I was pretty impressed with the Pilots, Tower People, Technology, Jet, what was actually done, etc.!

Ahhh yes... 28 minutes of mentour to finish off the week. What more can you ask for?

The whole female side of my next door neighbor's family, mother, wife & daughter, was wiped out in an attempted mountaintop landing in fog at Charleston WV, August 10, 1968, Piedmont flight 230. Lifting fog covered only the lower end of the runway. The Fairchild 227 commuter from Louisville via Cincinnati hit just short of the mountaintop at 8:58 AM and bounced onto the runway or next to it in flames. Initially there were 6 survivors of 37 on board but 4 died in the hospital within 2 days. 2 of 32 passengers received only minor scratches as they were thrown clear of the burning fuselage. Contributing was that the instrument approach beacon was out for repairs.

I find your videos amazing and incredibly insightful! I've always had a fascination with flying, though I never pursued it. Last night I was on a flight that landed in pretty dense fog after two go-arounds. It wasn't all that unpleasant to me, though several passengers near me were clearly nervous and unsettled, probably due to how low we were and the ground lights being barely visible from the windows (we were pretty low from what I can tell when he revved the engines and started climbing again suddenly). When I got home I was curious about the technology/procedures that allow you all to land these things in those conditions and ended up finding your video on the go-around procedure, I really enjoyed it and learned quite a bit from that single video. Amazing stuff and technology is incredible to me (I'm a software analyst and tester so I kind of become a total nerd with these things). I ended up watching your channel for about 2 hours and here I am again the day after watching more! You are a very, very good communicator and are clearly an expert in your profession. Looking forward to watching more and more.

You do a great job explaining to non instrument rated aviators. Back in the 60's in the Air Force, we had the GCA approach where a ground controller gave us very detailed instructions on the approach. Minimums were 1/4SM. Then came the ILS with minimums of 200' 1/2SM. For a time, we had both. The 5 seconds prior to either continuing or going missed is a learned skill. It is real time. There is no way to slow down what is about to happen. The CFR's (USA) clearly state what is necessary to continue. You need to clearly identify the approach lights or the red sidebar lights, the threshold, RAILS and or VASI/PAPI and then the threshold. In commercial aviation, there is no more 200'. It is just an altitude where you make the decision. All you need is the required visibility and today, it is usually RVR. When complying with the CFR's, you can descend another 100' after reaching the missed approach altitude if the above can be identified. In today's major airports you will also have high intensity runway lights, touchdown zone lights and centerline lights. Air carriers that have CAT II, III training are in their own world.

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