Widebody Transport
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 16.1
Situational Awareness; Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance
Airspace Structure; Procedure; Manuals; Airport
NorCal was running what seemed to be straight ILS approaches; while advertising Simultaneous Offset Instrument Approaches (SOIA). They ran many pairs that collapsed below 3 miles; where we could see the second arrival and provide Tower visual separation. Then Aircraft Y checked in as Aircraft X was about to cross the threshold at 4.95 miles in trail. I do not believe that NorCal accomplished visual separation; the question was not asked; and I pointed this out to the CIC to say they (NorCal) were running them tight. Not long after this occurred; I called over to advise the Final Controller that we would not be able to provide visual separation the two aircraft joining final who were not 3 miles apart. The NorCal Final Controller then advised me that we were on Closely Spaced Parallel (CSP) approaches. I said that is not what we are advertising. They told me they were running CSP until SOIA. By this time; I had an estimated twenty-five minutes on position and the Local Controller had about twenty-two. Neither one of us were aware they were ever running CSP approaches. There has been a lot of confusion surrounding this and someone is going to end up in a bad situation.Clarify what approaches are being run and run those until we see the next offering and only then put it on the ATIS.
SFO Controller reported NorCal was utilizing a parallel approach procedure without notifying SFO Tower or advertising the procedure on ATIS as required.