B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 230; Flight Crew Total 7000; Flight Crew Type 2800
Situational Awareness; Training / Qualification
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors
Was last flight of the day for us; flight almost two hours delayed due to winds in SFO. Finally headed for SFO; normal flight; good trip up to this point; Captain and I got along great; no communication issues. SFO was reporting winds 20 gust 30ish. Planned approach with ref speed +20 so target was 163 IIRC. On final at around 1;500 FT Tower advised preceding two aircraft had reported gains of 30 KTS at 300 FT and 200 FT respectively. I acknowledged on the radio. I mentioned our target was pretty close to flap speed of 175 and asked Captain what the plan was. He didn't give a clear plan; he just sort of shrugged it off. 1;000 FT call came up. I was focused heavily on our airspeed due to the Tower reporting the large gains. Called 500 FT; 400 FT; 300 FT; 200 FT; then at 150 FT we got an increase of roughly 25 KTS. I called 'flap blow up; go-around'. The airspeed was 185 KIAS and the flaps retracted to 25. The Captain didn't respond but was alert and flying fine. The second time I said 'we need to go around' we were at about 75 FT; I again mentioned the speed and flap blow up. By the time the Captain responded with I'm not going around' we were somewhere around 50 FT. At this point I had to decided immediately what to do and I decided the safest option was to focus on making sure we got the plane stopped. Wrestling him for the airplane was not a good option in my opinion. I knew we had a lot of runway so I verified speed brake extension and reverse thrust activation and began calling airspeeds and runway remaining. Touchdown was normal I suppose for 172 KIAS and we stopped with several thousand feet remaining. We taxied off the runway and proceeded normally to the gate. The Captain mentioned that he was sorry he had ignored me but that he wasn't going to go around at the time I called for it. He felt the safest course was to land the plane. I don't recall the exact number; but we had over 8;000 LBS of fuel at the gate and there was an alternate listed on our flight plan (SMF) so we had enough fuel to safely execute a go around and talk about things. At the time I was just happy to be on the ground safely but as the hours have past I have become more disturbed by this event and after reviewing our go-around policy in the Flight Operations Manual (FOM) feel that I really need to write about this so we can continue to improve our cultural differences.
B737 First Officer reported he recommended a go-around on short final when the flaps blew up from excessive speed but the Captain ignored him and continued to a landing.