Landing in Minneapolis in heavy snow 07/12/01

Minneapolis center gave me instructions to turn right to 180 degrees and descend to 3000 feet for a landing in Minneapolis. The active runways were 12L and 12R. Weather was 10017G21KT 1/2SM R30L/3500V4000FT SN FZFG VV005 M08/M11 A3001. As I descended in zero visibility, I monitored my progress in FSNav and waited for Center to hand me off to the tower. When I reached 3000 feet, I almost missed my turn onto the glide slope and Center never handed me off to the tower. What was I to do?

I chose to call the tower and ask for clearance to land on 12R. Clearance was granted. The tower then informed a departing United flight that I was inbound and that he should hold short of 12R. As I landed (visibility was in the thousands of feet) Center started private messaging me about a near collision and informed me that I could have been banned from VATSIM.

Tower handed me off to Ground and I asked the ground controller about a near collision. He didn't seem to know what was going on.

I am wondering if there is any communication between Center, Tower, and Ground. It looks like there were new controllers coming on line while I was in the process of landing.

Bobby,

You are in big trouble dude.

When you think you need to be transferred to a different controller or need to go lower, just ask the controller for permission before you decide on your own.

Remember this is same in real life and in VATSIM!!

Aside from that, WTF!! I hate when the controllers threaten you like that. Who do they think they are! They never admit their mistakes and consider them as GODS of the Virtual skies. I know there are some really good controllers but some of them are there just for the kick!

Anyway, Bobby, thanks for keeping your cool.

I do not have the answer to your last question.

See you soon.

Naresh

I agree that I should have just declared a missed approach and executed that procedure when I lost contact with Center. Instead, I waited for Center to hand me off to the tower and that didn't happen until it was too late to capture the ILS.

My question is - do I proceed on a current assigned heading (180 degrees) while trying to contact Center, or do I take the runway heading and then execute the missed approach? What if I was flying over the runway while someone was taking off? I don't want to go wandering around all over the terrain or city at low altitude not knowing what is out there ahead of me. For all I know there might be other traffic or even obstacles like communication towers in the area.

As you can see, I am new to all this. I thought that contacting the tower was the safest option at the time. If I could not contact the tower also, then I'm in trouble for sure.

I was flying in zero visibility after all and I was very busy controlling the aircraft. This wasn't a Piper Cub. I thought at the time that it was best to make radio contact with the tower, and I still feel it was the safest way to go. I wasn't about to go charging blind across country at 3000 feet and 190 KTS at a heading of 180 degrees without permission. It would have been dangerous, and besides there are noise restrictions over the city. <br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: Robert_Thompson, Dec 03, 2007 - 06:31 AM</em><!-- end editby -->

Well, you had to be there to judge the situation.

Bob,
Like you said, you had to be there. Here's what I would do in the meantime. I'd go to their website, and send them and email.

www.minniecenter.org/module.php?page=feedback

Just be honest with them, tell them your frustrations (politically correct of course) lol, and see what happens.

We're all human, and some take things more seriously than others, but one thing is for sure, communication is the key.

take care,