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Air carrier captain arriving bqn; expected the tower to be closed according to the airport briefing page (10-7). A position report is made on the CTAF and the reporter determines that the tower is in fact open after normal closing time.
| Attributes | |
| ACN | 1341753 |
| Time | |
| Date | 201603 |
| Local Time Of Day | 0001-0600 |
| Place | |
| Locale Reference | BQN.Airport |
| State Reference | PR |
| Environment | |
| Flight Conditions | VMC |
| Aircraft 1 | |
| Make Model Name | Medium Transport |
| Operating Under FAR Part | Part 121 |
| Flight Phase | Final Approach Landing |
| Flight Plan | IFR |
| Person 1 | |
| Function | Captain Pilot Flying |
| Experience | Flight Crew Last 90 Days 130 Flight Crew Total 18000 Flight Crew Type 185 |
| Events | |
| Anomaly | Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy |
Narrative:
The 10-7 [airport briefing] page for bqn says that the tower is closed after 21:00 local time. During preflight and before descent I made note of this and briefed the first officer on non tower ops. About 50 miles out we were cleared for the approach by san juan center and told to contact bqn. We made a non tower position call and were told to report joining final. I thought this was the advisory service that is also mentioned in the 10-7. It was not until another plane used the word tower that I clued in that the tower was open. I asked the first officer to verify with the tower that they were open. Tower responded yes. We were about 15 miles out at this point and safety was not compromised and nothing was violated. I'm simply writing this to make sure that the 10-7 page is changed to reflect that the tower may be open. If a crew thinks the tower is closed it might be possible to land without a clearance and this is a big safety issue. The parallel taxiways are also closed and landing flights on rwy 08 must back taxi also increasing the risk of landing on another plane. Please update the 10-7.
Original NASA ASRS Text
Title: Air Carrier Captain arriving BQN; expected the Tower to be closed according to the airport briefing page (10-7). A position report is made on the CTAF and the reporter determines that the Tower is in fact open after normal closing time.
Narrative: The 10-7 [airport briefing] page for BQN says that the tower is closed after 21:00 local time. During preflight and before descent I made note of this and briefed the FO on non tower ops. About 50 miles out we were cleared for the approach by San Juan center and told to contact BQN. We made a non tower position call and were told to report joining final. I thought this was the advisory service that is also mentioned in the 10-7. It was not until another plane used the word tower that I clued in that the tower was open. I asked the FO to verify with the tower that they were open. Tower responded yes. We were about 15 miles out at this point and safety was not compromised and nothing was violated. I'm simply writing this to make sure that the 10-7 page is changed to reflect that the tower may be open. If a crew thinks the tower is closed it might be possible to land without a clearance and this is a big safety issue. The parallel taxiways are also closed and landing flights on rwy 08 must back taxi also increasing the risk of landing on another plane. Please update the 10-7.
Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.