Narrative:

During a visual approach I was the pilot monitoring. The first officer was pilot flying. The center held us up at 6000 feet and 2 miles north of the VOR until clearing us for a visual approach upon passage of a [military] helicopter at 5000 feet at our 9 o'clock position travelling opposite direction. We were switched to tower at that altitude and position noting 4 targets on TCAS at that time. The weather was clear daylight however lots of glare off water. I called the tower. The tower came back twice with very low unintelligible audio and I came back unreadable weak audio. At third time tower said how do hear me now? I said loud and clear. He said report two mile right base. I replied unable we are at 6000 feet over VOR due to center and must descend and turn away from airport for stable approach before coming in. We were past the VOR about one half mile.at same time we got a TA alert on TCAS directly below us and started looking below. Off to our left below we saw another [military helicopter] 1500 feet below us matching our speed for the airport and not talking on tower frequency. The aircraft was hard to see due to sun glare off the water but discerned it to be a second [military] helicopter inbound for adq. I queried the tower and told him we were on straight in final and queried tower about status of 2nd [military helicopter] below us. Tower said that [military helicopter] was not a factor but I felt otherwise. Tower said to continue; landing clearance further in as another aircraft was landing in front of us. I replied continuing. This was approximately at 2.5 mile final. Meanwhile three additional VFR aircraft called in to land. One was by buckskin lake northwest of the field and one behind us and at least 2 queried for takeoff. Once we completed final checks the first officer and I both used good CRM to discuss escape maneuver/missed options if we did not receive a landing clearance in time based on aircraft threats in our area we had identified. Finally the [military helicopter] below us matching our speed came on tower frequency requesting to land and the tower instructed the 2nd [military helicopter] to remain clear and called traffic landing (our plane). The 2nd [military helicopter] then said traffic in sight and complied with tower and remained clear. There was a lot of radio chatter as a result. I also think tower did not have our current position or have us in sight as he wanted to place another VFR airplane in front of us via right base. The traffic instructed for the base had us in sight and said he was in better position to land behind us. About 1 mile and 500 feet we finally could get out a 2nd request for landing and it was granted. We were told no delay on runway and exit and call the tower. I thought the tower had us in sight but I am not sure he did until we were on a mile final and I think this surprised his train of thought. I tried about 5 times to call tower on telephone but believe he was too busy handling traffic to answer. I talked to him on departure and said there was no need to call now. To his credit I felt he did a remarkable job given the high workload in this scenario. I thanked him for doing the best job under all the workload he had at the time and all of us want to keep things safe. We departed without incident.

Related reports:

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier flight crew reported multiple conflicts with helicopters not in contact with Tower while on approach to ADQ.

Narrative: During a visual approach I was the pilot monitoring. The First Officer was pilot flying. The Center held us up at 6000 feet and 2 miles north of the VOR until clearing us for a Visual Approach upon passage of a [military] helicopter at 5000 feet at our 9 o'clock position travelling opposite direction. We were switched to Tower at that altitude and position noting 4 targets on TCAS at that time. The weather was clear daylight however lots of glare off water. I called the Tower. The Tower came back twice with very low unintelligible audio and I came back unreadable weak audio. At third time Tower said how do hear me now? I said loud and clear. He said report two mile right base. I replied unable we are at 6000 feet over VOR due to Center and must descend and turn away from airport for stable approach before coming in. We were past the VOR about one half mile.At same time we got a TA alert on TCAS directly below us and started looking below. Off to our left below we saw another [military helicopter] 1500 feet below us matching our speed for the airport and not talking on Tower frequency. The aircraft was hard to see due to sun glare off the water but discerned it to be a second [military] Helicopter inbound for ADQ. I queried the Tower and told him we were on straight in final and queried Tower about status of 2nd [military helicopter] below us. Tower said that [military helicopter] was not a factor but I felt otherwise. Tower said to continue; landing clearance further in as another aircraft was landing in front of us. I replied continuing. This was approximately at 2.5 mile final. Meanwhile three additional VFR aircraft called in to land. One was by Buckskin Lake northwest of the field and one behind us and at least 2 queried for takeoff. Once we completed final checks the First Officer and I both used good CRM to discuss escape maneuver/missed options if we did not receive a landing clearance in time based on aircraft threats in our area we had identified. Finally the [military helicopter] below us matching our speed came on Tower frequency requesting to land and the Tower instructed the 2nd [military helicopter] to remain clear and called traffic landing (our plane). The 2nd [military helicopter] then said traffic in sight and complied with Tower and remained clear. There was a lot of radio chatter as a result. I also think Tower did not have our current position or have us in sight as he wanted to place another VFR airplane in front of us via right base. The traffic instructed for the base had us in sight and said he was in better position to land behind us. About 1 mile and 500 feet we finally could get out a 2nd request for landing and it was granted. We were told no delay on runway and exit and call the Tower. I thought the Tower had us in sight but I am not sure he did until we were on a mile final and I think this surprised his train of thought. I tried about 5 times to call Tower on telephone but believe he was too busy handling traffic to answer. I talked to him on departure and said there was no need to call now. To his credit I felt he did a remarkable job given the high workload in this scenario. I thanked him for doing the best job under all the workload he had at the time and all of us want to keep things safe. We departed without incident.

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.