NASA · Aviation Safety Reporting System
B737 MAX 8 Captain reported encountering wake turbulence on approach to EWR.
What is ASRS?
The Aviation Safety Reporting System is NASA's voluntary, confidential, non- punitive incident-reporting system, established 1976. Pilots, controllers, dispatchers, and maintenance technicians file reports describing safety- relevant events. NASA de-identifies every report before adding it to the public database. Reports are not investigated by NASA, the FAA, or the NTSB — they represent the reporter's perspective.
Pilot narrative
Verbatim from the de-identified NASA record. First-person account by the
reporter. NASA strips identifying details (names, company, specific time);
anonymization placeholders are ZZZ,
X, Y.
We briefed both the CAT 1 and CAT 3 ILS approaches to EWR 22L with weather reported at 300 and 1. We decided to fly the CAT 3 with the fog and low ceilings. Upon clearance for the approach at 2,500 feet I engaged the second autopilot. All systems were operating normally. On a right dogleg to final we were about 3.5 miles in trail of another aircraft on the ILS to 22L. Winds were calm on the surface and virtually nonexistent at altitude. We were instructed to maintain 170 KIAS until BUZZD. At this time we slowed to 170 and had the flaps configured at 10 degrees with the landing gear still up. At our current weight this put us about 2-3 knots above the minimum flaps 10 speed. The rides were absolutely smooth. Shortly thereafter we experienced what we estimated to be wake turbulence from the preceding aircraft and the airplane rolled to the left at a moderate rate. Realizing it was not going to recover on its own I disconnected the autopilot and auto throttles and immediately received an aural and visual “Roll Authority” annunciation. Executing the upset procedure I advanced the throttles and rolled the aircraft right to level and it immediately recovered. At this point the FO (First Officer) and I had a brief discussion on whether to continue the approach or request a go-around. The speed had recovered to well above the flaps 10 speed (about 185 KIAS) and we were still about 3.5 miles in trail of the preceding aircraft, stable, and right on the localizer and in level flight approaching the glide slope. We both agreed that the weather was within CAT 1 standards and that we could continue the approach. We configured normally flew the CAT 1 ILS to an uneventful landing and taxied to the gate. Anecdotally none of the Flight Attendants or passengers commented on the minor upset. It was about as mild as an upset could be.
Analyst callback
ASRS analysts occasionally follow up with reporters by phone. These are the paraphrased additional notes from those conversations.
Reporter said he is unsure of the aircraft type they were following.
NASA classification — Anomalies
- Inflight Event / Encounter
NASA classification — Assessments
- Contributing Factors / Situations
- Environment - Non Weather Related · Procedure
- Primary Problem
- Ambiguous
ASRS reports are voluntarily submitted, de-identified by NASA, and represent the reporter's perspective. The presence of reports on a topic cannot be used to infer prevalence in the National Airspace System. The authoritative source is the NASA ASRS Database Online at asrs.arc.nasa.gov ↗.