Philadelphia TRACON controller reported of an operation that the front line manager and the reporter...

Narrative:

Phl was landing runway 27R. The weather was down with ceilings around 2000. A helicopter needed to get into center city (downtown philly) which is about 4 miles northeast of the airport. The helicopter was put on the ILS to runway 17 into phl. When this is done; the helicopters simply use it to track inbound and when they are comfortable and have the city in sight they just peel off and go VFR to destination. This normally happens around 3-4 miles north of the airport.while this was happening; the front line manager was instructing the final controller (a developmental) to vector out the arrival spacing and make a gap for the helicopter. I overheard and questioned what he was doing. He said he was protecting for the missed approach. I asked him how many miles he needed. His response after thinking about it and viewing his re-categorization card was 5 miles. I asked him '5 miles from where'? He really didn't have an answer he just said for the missed approach. The missed approach for runway 17 is a left turn (yes; a turn into the arriving traffic on runway 27R) to a VOR to the northeast and climb to 3000. The missed approach on runway 27R is to the northwest and climb to 3000.I would like management to brief the entire facility on this operation and why 5 miles is the appropriate separation for a missed approach procedure into arriving traffic.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Philadelphia TRACON Controller reported of an operation that the Front Line Manager and the reporter were not sure about. The reporter wanted a briefing on this operation and how it was legal.

Narrative: PHL was landing runway 27R. The weather was down with ceilings around 2000. A helicopter needed to get into Center City (downtown Philly) which is about 4 miles northeast of the airport. The helicopter was put on the ILS to runway 17 into PHL. When this is done; the helicopters simply use it to track inbound and when they are comfortable and have the city in sight they just peel off and go VFR to destination. This normally happens around 3-4 miles north of the airport.While this was happening; the Front Line Manager was instructing the final controller (a developmental) to vector out the arrival spacing and make a gap for the helicopter. I overheard and questioned what he was doing. He said he was protecting for the missed approach. I asked him how many miles he needed. His response after thinking about it and viewing his Re-categorization card was 5 miles. I asked him '5 miles from where'? He really didn't have an answer he just said for the missed approach. The missed approach for runway 17 is a left turn (yes; a turn into the arriving traffic on runway 27R) to a VOR to the northeast and climb to 3000. The missed approach on runway 27R is to the northwest and climb to 3000.I would like management to brief the entire facility on this operation and why 5 miles is the appropriate separation for a missed approach procedure into arriving traffic.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.

Attributes
ACN	1408436
Time
Date	201612
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	PHL.Airport
State Reference	PA
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Helicopter
Flight Phase	Final Approach
Person 1
Function	Approach
Qualification	Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Experience	Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 9
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

Philadelphia TRACON controller reported of an operation that the front line manager and the reporter were not sure about. The reporter wanted a briefing on this operation and how it was legal.