Narrative:

I was the reserve first officer's seated in the center observer seat. The captain was flying. The captain briefed that he would hand fly the majority of the arrival; the approach; and the landing. We were cleared the approach; the ILS xxr. As we commenced the approach; the captain (pilot flying) was high and fast and was slow to correct; and I was concerned about our ability to be stable by 500 AGL. I was busily watching the approach to see how the captain's inputs were correcting the situation and verifying that we were going to land on the correct runway; which was taking more of my focus than usual because the runway lights were more difficult to see than usual. As we approached 500 AGL; the first officer (pilot not flying) called out that we were stable. We were still fast although airspeed was correcting rapidly to an on speed condition. I knew that if the speed did not continue to decrease to the correct speed; that I could always call a go-around. The speed did adequately stabilize and the landing was uneventful. The stability of this approach is mentioned here because it became a distraction. The entire crew became fixated on the stability of the approach and all of the factors associated with it. We were all spending the majority of our attention on it and after landing it became a question in all of our minds whether we had received landing clearance prior to landing. The first officer (pilot not flying) was task saturated trying to complete checklists; talk on the radio; and monitor the approach effectively. I think we all suffered some expectation bias here. I expected that we would be cleared to land; so in the midst of focusing on the approach; I may have just assumed that we were cleared to land. A couple of things could have prevented this. Historically; the arrival into [this airport] is one where the airplane is high. The captain should have more aggressively dealt with that issue earlier. Hand flying is great; but not in every situation. The approach environment was busy and when the pilot flying decides to hand fly; it greatly increases the workload of the pilot not flying; reducing his/her effectiveness as a monitor. This was not the best situation to be hand flying. Realize that even as an observer; you can become saturated. I needed to not fixate so much on the approach; but broaden my scan to other things; such as communication and ensuring that we had clearance to land. Lastly; the stabilized approach; if stability becomes such an issue that it becomes distracting; don't hesitate to call it unstable; and go around and set it up again. In this case it would have eliminated all of our fixation on the approach and probably would have eliminated completely our question of whether we landed with or without landing clearance.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: MD11 Relief First Officer attributed landing without clearance to flight crew's fixation on stabilizing the approach.

Narrative: I was the Reserve First Officer's seated in the center observer seat. The Captain was flying. The Captain briefed that he would hand fly the majority of the arrival; the approach; and the landing. We were cleared the approach; the ILS XXR. As we commenced the approach; the Captain (pilot flying) was high and fast and was slow to correct; and I was concerned about our ability to be stable by 500 AGL. I was busily watching the approach to see how the Captain's inputs were correcting the situation and verifying that we were going to land on the correct runway; which was taking more of my focus than usual because the runway lights were more difficult to see than usual. As we approached 500 AGL; the First Officer (pilot not flying) called out that we were stable. We were still fast although airspeed was correcting rapidly to an on speed condition. I knew that if the speed did not continue to decrease to the correct speed; that I could always call a go-around. The speed did adequately stabilize and the landing was uneventful. The stability of this approach is mentioned here because it became a distraction. The entire crew became fixated on the stability of the approach and all of the factors associated with it. We were all spending the majority of our attention on it and after landing it became a question in all of our minds whether we had received landing clearance prior to landing. The First Officer (pilot not flying) was task saturated trying to complete checklists; talk on the radio; and monitor the approach effectively. I think we all suffered some expectation bias here. I expected that we would be cleared to land; so in the midst of focusing on the approach; I may have just assumed that we were cleared to land. A couple of things could have prevented this. Historically; the arrival into [this airport] is one where the airplane is high. The Captain should have more aggressively dealt with that issue earlier. Hand flying is great; but not in every situation. The approach environment was busy and when the pilot flying decides to hand fly; it greatly increases the workload of the pilot not flying; reducing his/her effectiveness as a monitor. This was not the best situation to be hand flying. Realize that even as an observer; you can become saturated. I needed to not fixate so much on the approach; but broaden my scan to other things; such as communication and ensuring that we had clearance to land. Lastly; the stabilized approach; if stability becomes such an issue that it becomes distracting; don't hesitate to call it unstable; and go around and set it up again. In this case it would have eliminated all of our fixation on the approach and probably would have eliminated completely our question of whether we landed with or without landing clearance.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.