B777 captain reported that when the autopilot autoland was tested on several aircraft; the aircraft ...

Attributes
ACN	1524480
Time
Date	201803
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	EWR.Airport
State Reference	NJ
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B777 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Final Approach
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Autoland
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 290 Flight Crew Total 35000 Flight Crew Type 13089
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

Narrative:

On three different occasions in three different aircraft within the last two months I was the pilot flying and was requested by maintenance to perform an autopilot autoland on the flight to newark as part of the routine continuing recertification of these autopilots. On these 3 different occasions I observed a common abnormality; these different aircraft touched down (or wanted to) 15 to 20 feet right of centerline on runway 4R at ewr. I have never seen this occurrence at any other airport when performing an autoland. It was only on the third incident did I realize the abnormality was not a fault with the autopilot or the individual aircraft but with ewr's runway 4R localizer signal itself. I reported my observation to the tower once at the gate and I wrote up the aircraft on the last autoland as a failed autolanding as I took over manually at 100 feet. In my continuing qualification simulator experience and at every other airport in the world; the B777 routinely autolands exactly on centerline. In a low visibility situation I believe this issue with the ewr 4R localizer signal might compromise safety.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B777 Captain reported that when the autopilot autoland was tested on several aircraft; the aircraft touched down to the right of centerline on EWR Runway 4R.

Narrative: On three different occasions in three different aircraft within the last two months I was the pilot flying and was requested by maintenance to perform an autopilot autoland on the flight to Newark as part of the routine continuing recertification of these autopilots. On these 3 different occasions I observed a common abnormality; these different aircraft touched down (or wanted to) 15 to 20 feet right of centerline on runway 4R at EWR. I have never seen this occurrence at any other airport when performing an autoland. It was only on the third incident did I realize the abnormality was not a fault with the autopilot or the individual aircraft but with EWR's runway 4R localizer signal itself. I reported my observation to the tower once at the gate and I wrote up the aircraft on the last autoland as a failed autolanding as I took over manually at 100 feet. In my continuing qualification simulator experience and at every other airport in the world; the B777 routinely autolands exactly on centerline. In a low visibility situation I believe this issue with the EWR 4R localizer signal might compromise safety.

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.

B777 captain reported that when the autopilot autoland was tested on several aircraft; the aircraft touched down to the right of centerline on ewr runway 4R.