B737-700
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 227; Flight Crew Type 9000
Human-Machine Interface; Communication Breakdown; Distraction
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Chart Or Publication; Human Factors; Manuals; Airport
We were cleared for the visual to Runway 16L at Denver. The First Officer was the pilot flying and I was the pilot monitoring. We were told by ATC that there would be converging traffic lining up for Runway 16R and we visually acquired the converging traffic around eight miles out. At approximately five miles; we received a RA telling us to descend at 1;500 fpm. We disengaged the autopilot and autothrottles and complied with the RA. However; we were unable to execute a go-around because we did not want to pull up into the RA descend command. As we passed 1;000 AGL; we arrested our descent to 1;000 fpm; which caused us to pull up into the RA 'avoidance' region. The RA cancelled at approximately 700 AGL. We made an uneventful landing and taxied to the gate.Once we were on the ground and at the gate; we revisited our DEN airport operations page and discovered that Runway 16L/R is one of the runways where; under certain conditions; TA should be selected on the TCAS. All of these conditions were met on our flight:1. We were making the approach to Runway 16L.2. DEN Tower did notify us that there was converging parallel traffic to Runway 16R.3. Traffic was in sight.4. Visual separation was maintained throughout the approach and landing.We realized that we should have selected TA on the TCAS once these conditions were met.
When cleared for a Visual Approach to 16L at DEN and advised of converging traffic inbound to 16R the flight crew of a B737-700 failed to tune their TCAS to TA only and experienced a TCAS 'descend' RA of 1500 fpm.