B737-700
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 135; Flight Crew Type 17000
Communication Breakdown
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Unstabilized Approach
Flight Crew Landed As Precaution
Human Factors
On our descent briefing we agreed to plan a flaps 40 landing because the ATIS visibility of 1/2 mile was near approach minimums (although I decided to fly a CAT II Approach for an added margin. CAT II mins were RVR). The entire arrival was uneventful; no changes to the plan; not much traffic; and good ATC vectors to join the ILS final. I began configuring early to ease our workload and compression; and we made all required callouts on the approach. The mistake was that I called for flaps 30 when we had briefed and programmed flaps 40.Just after breaking out of the weather at approximately 400 feet AGL; I recognized that our current flaps setting; 30; was not what we had planned. I called for flaps 40 and we landed uneventfully. I asked the First Officer (FO) if he was comfortable with continuing and he said yes. It was not a directive from me.My assessment upon recognizing the error included a quick evaluation of the options: land flaps 30 and pad the target/landing speeds; reposition the flaps to 40 and land; or go around. With full acknowledgment the my decision to reposition the flaps to 40 and land was contrary to stabilized approach criteria; I believe it was the safest course of action and did not increase risk to the operation. We were in a safe landing configuration; engines spooled; and plenty of dry runway. There had not been any non-standard events causing our situation other than a Crew error; maybe due to the approach being so uneventful.Landing flaps 30 would have been a guess as to target speed; although I knew that the stopping margins were large and my experience tells me that the difference between flaps 30 and 40 on a long dry runway is not large (this option would have negated the need for this report.) Going around would have been the most compliant decision; but since safety was not jeopardized; it would have been operationally inefficient; and would have put us under duress on day four of a four-day.Therefore; I decided to proceed to landing. My mistake as the Pilot flying was calling for the incorrect final flap setting. The FO (we had worked well together over the four days as a crew) missed the error. It was a mistake; no question; but despite operating out of desired procedures; I do not believe safety was compromised and I believe we acted well as a crew.
B737-700 flight crew configured flaps to briefed position late in the approach just before touchdown.