The captain of a transport aircraft on a training flight reported that smoke from nearby fire obscur...

Narrative:

While being vectored to ILS runway 24R at lax; the so cal controller asked us to follow another heavy. At the time; there was a thick layer of smoke from the fire to the west between our altitude (3000 MSL) and airport; and while lax was reporting 10 SM vis; the inflight visibility was 1-2 SM. Turning right base; we had the traffic to follow in sight; but he soon entered the smoke and we lost sight. The controller asked us multiple times if we had the airport in sight; which we did not due to the heavy layer of smoke. Due to the distraction of trying to follow an aircraft we could no longer see; as well as trying to locate the airport through the smoke; we undershot the localizer and the controller appropriately broke us out and re-vectored us. The second time we concentrated on capturing and flying the localizer. Once we got 4-5 miles from the runway; the visibility was fine and we continued the approach mostly via visual references.the use of a visual approach and directions to follow traffic in front may not have been appropriate; as the inflight visibility didn't support visual flight conditions until much lower and closer to the airport. The lax ATIS didn't really indicate the impact of the smoke; as the visibility was 8-10 miles below the smoke layer. I was pilot flying; in retrospect I should have directed the pilot not flying to tell the approach controller that the flight visibility didn't support visual approaches.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: The Captain of a transport aircraft on a training flight reported that smoke from nearby fire obscured portions of the final approach segments even though the airport was reporting VFR visibilities.

Narrative: While being vectored to ILS runway 24R at LAX; the So Cal controller asked us to follow another Heavy. At the time; there was a thick layer of smoke from the fire to the west between our altitude (3000 MSL) and airport; and while LAX was reporting 10 SM vis; the inflight visibility was 1-2 SM. Turning right base; we had the traffic to follow in sight; but he soon entered the smoke and we lost sight. The controller asked us multiple times if we had the airport in sight; which we did not due to the heavy layer of smoke. Due to the distraction of trying to follow an aircraft we could no longer see; as well as trying to locate the airport through the smoke; we undershot the localizer and the controller appropriately broke us out and re-vectored us. The second time we concentrated on capturing and flying the localizer. Once we got 4-5 miles from the runway; the visibility was fine and we continued the approach mostly via visual references.The use of a visual approach and directions to follow traffic in front may not have been appropriate; as the inflight visibility didn't support visual flight conditions until much lower and closer to the airport. The LAX ATIS didn't really indicate the impact of the smoke; as the visibility was 8-10 miles below the smoke layer. I was Pilot Flying; in retrospect I should have directed the Pilot Not Flying to tell the approach controller that the flight visibility didn't support visual approaches.

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.

Attributes
ACN	1365059
Time
Date	201606
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	LAX.Airport
State Reference	CA
Environment
Flight Conditions	IMC
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Medium Transport
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Initial Approach
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Flight Instructor Flight Crew Flight Engineer Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) Flight Crew Multiengine
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 100 Flight Crew Total 8000 Flight Crew Type 350
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Track / Heading All Types Inflight Event / Encounter Other / Unknown

The captain of a transport aircraft on a training flight reported that smoke from nearby fire obscured portions of the final approach segments even though the airport was reporting VFR visibilities.