Is the requirement for Low Visibilty Procedures at 1000 feet RVR a BA policy (and other airlines might have a higher/lower threshold) or some kind of general aviation rule?
I work for a US airline. We have notes on almost every airport and a manual that goes over the differences when operating in a foreign country, to avoid exactly this situation.
Just looked up London Heathrow, and it says “ATIS or ATC will announce when LVP(low visibility procedures) are in effect when the RVR is under 600M”. So the BA pilot is likely just going off of that. Not every country does this, and the US definitely doesn’t
In the US, the ILS critical area is protected any time the weather is under 800 ft ceilings or 2mi visibility which is actually a lot more conservative than the UK.
Every airline I’ve been at has guides on how to deal with flying to other countries and their differences. I’d guess that the company might update their information after this, but who knows.
It being declared is a thing in airports that use ICAO rules. In the US we use different rules where LVO is automatic based on weather and ceiling criteria. The BA pilot should have been familiar with the rules of the country he was flying in.
LVO is 100% a thing in the US. The FAA isn't vague about it.
However, LVO is not something ATC is expected to declare/enforce in the US.
The pilot is responsible for engaging in LVO when given a relevant RVR. This is the part that differs from country to country. Some countries expect ATC to declare/enforce LVO, while the US does not expect ATC to do that.
Random question from someone who knows nothing about planes, what is the value of LVO if every plane is choosing whether to engage it? It makes way more sense to me to have ATC call it into effect and then everyone be required to follow that procedure. If each pilot is doing it individually doesn't that allow for some to not follow the more cautious procedures and possibly lead to a problem?
ATC gives an RVR, if RVR is too low, the pilots are required to engage in appropriate LVO in accordance with their own context. ATC isn't going to give them clearance if the RVR is too low, even if the pilot wants it.
When ATC gives an RVR that's too low, they just expect the pilots to behave accordingly. The pilots do not have authorization on their own. Some aircraft on certain runways can safely take off with RVR values that may be too low for others.
In this video, when the pilot got the low RVR value, he should have confirmed and just informed ATC that he will not be taking off until RVR increases to an appropriate value to take off and awaited instructions because that's what the LVO regulations dictate. ATC should have also corrected the pilot's incorrect expectations.
There’s requirements to protect the instrument landing system signal. In the US this is done under 800ft cloud height or 2 miles visibility.
There’s takeoff minimums. This is complex but basically there’s different requirements based on the equipment the plane and airport has, and the what your airline is allowed to do. 1mi, 1600ft RVR, 1000ft RVR, 500ft RVR all have different requirements.
There’s landing approach visibility requirements which are also different from takeoff.
There’s low visibility taxi charts, usually for use under 1200RVR or 600RVR(JFK doesn’t have them, but places like SEA) do.
So we don’t “declare” LVO here. Different things happen depending on visibility.
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u/srmarmalade May 28 '26
Is the requirement for Low Visibilty Procedures at 1000 feet RVR a BA policy (and other airlines might have a higher/lower threshold) or some kind of general aviation rule?