Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Communication Breakdown
Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT; Inflight Event / Encounter Unstabilized Approach
Flight Crew Executed Go Around / Missed Approach
Human Factors; Weather
We were on a visual to runway 22 and were cleared for the visual on a right downwind to runway 22. The captain called for flaps 8 and flaps 20 on the downwind leg and started the descent down. On base; we were descending to 2800; which is the final approach fix altitude and started making the turn to intercept. The captain then called for gear down flaps 30 and then flaps 45 before landing. As I was doing this; I glanced outside and noticed we had shot right through the course and I stated that out loud. The captain elected to try to correct and get back on course. I was too busy focused on looking to see if we were going to get back on course and I didn't even notice that we were extremely low. When I noticed I was uncomfortable with the situation and I said that we are low out loud and that is when we got the first sink rate warning because the captain was coming down too fast. The captain tried to correct but it was not enough and then we got the terrain pull up message. I then immediately called for a go around and the captain executed the maneuver and started the climb. The go around was very lackluster and I stated that we needed to climb. After clearing the terrain and getting to a safe altitude; the captain at this time said that he saw the runway and wanted to continue. I knew this was a terrible decision and immediately told the captain NO and that we needed to go around and do this approach again. At this time; I told tower we were going around and they gave us runway heading and 4000 feet to do another right base for runway 22. I wanted to pull the gear up but the captain told me that he was going to stay below 200kts so he told me to leave it down; I left it down but after about 2 minutes; the captain requested it up so I brought up the gear. On climb out the captain kept messing with the autopilot to make the airplane climb and I kept prompting him to go up to 4000 because we were barely climbing at all; and that is what we were cleared for. After we turned crosswind we finally made it to 4000. I reentered the approach for the captain and made sure to check all frequencies and altitudes were set again for the captain. This time on downwind I was more vocal and strongly advised adding a lot of crosswind correction because we had a 36 knot crosswind at altitude that was pushing us towards the runway and I knew that if the captain just paralleled the runway heading that we were going to over shoot again. The captain then added in the wind correction and it made it a little better. The captain stated that he wanted to make it a longer downwind to make sure we were on path and course this time and I agreed. We went out maybe about 3 miles further on downwind before executing the turn. As we started the turn and descended to 2800 the second time I recommended that we swing it all the way over or just turn the auto pilot off and fly it. The captain ended up keeping the autopilot on and started the turn. I knew that the best way to fly the pattern would have been to do it hand flown but the captain made the decision to use the autopilot. The captain started to go through the course again because the autopilot was just to slow on the turn and that's when I told him to disengage and fly the plane. The captain then disengaged the autopilot and hand flew the plane; and promptly got back on course. This time I was constantly monitoring and telling the captain to correct on path because he was getting low again; about a dot to a dot and a half off the glide slope. I kept saying 'v-path' 'v-path' and he corrected well before the final approach fix this time and was stable this time at altitude. From the final approach fix to the runway; I was constantly monitoring and calling corrections for the crosswind landing approach. We ended up being stable at 1000 and continued to a normal landing. I tried to mitigate this as much as I could. I spoke up and tried to give instructions on what to do to make it a betterapproach. I voiced my concern about being too low and then I also called for the go around and did not budge when the captain wanted to save the landing. I knew that was a bad decision and that we are taught never to save a landing especially when we are nowhere near being stable. We needed to execute a go around immediately. I was setting up frequencies; talking to tower; trying to make sure that we were still on course; calling corrections for the captain the whole time; trying to look outside and inside the plane to check that everything was ok; and trying to get all my calls out at the correct time. At that point I was over saturated and doing both my job and the captains. He is a fully qualified captain and I treated him as such. The Captain knew he was extremely off course and was not stable at the time and did not execute the go around earlier. I fully believed that the captain would be able to do a visual approach with a crosswind landing.
Bombardier CRJ First Officer reported a go around due to an unstable approach.