Narrative:

We were on the visual approach to stl 30R; autopilot engaged; following a 737 landing ahead of us. I heard ATC ask an air carrier flight if he could see us. He said he could and he was cleared for the visual approach for runway 30L. Somewhere between exale and reley we got a traffic alert for an aircraft above and behind us to our left. I looked over my left shoulder and up and observed an air carrier with flaps set at approach and no gear. He did not appear too close so I went back to monitoring the approach. The TA went away and then we got a 'descend' RA. I looked again at the air carrier and observed the aircraft starting to descend with the gear extending but it did not look like a conflict as the aircraft was turning back to the left. Without us changing the configuration or direction of the aircraft we got a 'clear of conflict' message. We went to tower. And during a free moment on the frequency I said 'thanks for the RA.' tower said 'who was that?' I said 'callsign.' and then the tower berated me for not listening to the words 'simultaneous approaches' on the ATIS. We had the ATIS). Also the other air carrier pilot berated me for not being professional (I assume). The landing happened normally with nothing further said. Cause; my guess is that the air carrier crew overshot the 30L localizer course. The two localizers for 30L and 30R are really close (my guess is about 1400 feet apart). St. Louis tower's VFR approach procedures allow VFR aircraft to join the localizer adjacent to another aircraft on the other parallel localizer; tripping the TCAS system. I would like somebody to review the radar data to see if the air carrier crew overshot the 30L localizer. The implication by st. Louis tower and by the md-80 crew was that I was doing something wrong and that TCAS RA's on visual approaches is normal is amazing. The implication that 'simultaneous approaches' on the ATIS somehow excuses TCAS RA's is especially interesting. I think the only thing I did wrong was to complain. My first officer was under the impression that st. Louis tower has a letter of agreement that waives normal minimums between aircraft on VFR parallel approaches because of the close proximity of 30L and 30R. I would like to know if this is true and have somebody review these (if they exist) and see if they or current st. Louis VFR approach procedures are not in some way a contributing factor in this incident. If st. Louis would stagger the VFR approaches the parallel approaches to 30L and 30R then the chance of this happening again would be greatly reduced. One other way to end this is to use 30L only for takeoff and to conduct VFR approaches to 30R and 29 only.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier on approach to STL Runway 30R received TCAS RA with traffic landing Runway 30R. Reporter questions ATC procedures that allegedly caused the TCAS RA event.

Narrative: We were on the visual approach to STL 30R; autopilot engaged; following a 737 landing ahead of us. I heard ATC ask an air carrier flight if he could see us. He said he could and he was cleared for the visual approach for Runway 30L. Somewhere between EXALE and RELEY we got a traffic alert for an aircraft above and behind us to our left. I looked over my left shoulder and up and observed an air carrier with flaps set at approach and no gear. He did not appear too close so I went back to monitoring the approach. The TA went away and then we got a 'descend' RA. I looked again at the air carrier and observed the aircraft starting to descend with the gear extending but it did not look like a conflict as the aircraft was turning back to the left. Without us changing the configuration or direction of the aircraft we got a 'clear of conflict' message. We went to tower. And during a free moment on the frequency I said 'thanks for the RA.' Tower said 'Who was that?' I said 'Callsign.' And then the Tower berated me for not listening to the words 'simultaneous approaches' on the ATIS. We had the ATIS). Also the other air carrier pilot berated me for not being professional (I assume). The landing happened normally with nothing further said. Cause; my guess is that the air carrier crew overshot the 30L localizer course. The two localizers for 30L and 30R are really close (my guess is about 1400 feet apart). St. Louis Tower's VFR approach procedures allow VFR aircraft to join the localizer adjacent to another aircraft on the other parallel localizer; tripping the TCAS system. I would like somebody to review the radar data to see if the air carrier crew overshot the 30L localizer. The implication by St. Louis Tower and by the MD-80 crew was that I was doing something wrong and that TCAS RA's on visual approaches is normal is amazing. The implication that 'Simultaneous Approaches' on the ATIS somehow excuses TCAS RA's is especially interesting. I think the only thing I did wrong was to complain. My first officer was under the impression that St. Louis tower has a letter of agreement that waives normal minimums between aircraft on VFR parallel approaches because of the close proximity of 30L and 30R. I would like to know if this is true and have somebody review these (if they exist) and see if they or current St. Louis VFR approach procedures are not in some way a contributing factor in this incident. If St. Louis would stagger the VFR approaches the parallel approaches to 30L and 30R then the chance of this happening again would be greatly reduced. One other way to end this is to use 30L only for takeoff and to conduct VFR approaches to 30R and 29 only.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.