Back in July air traffic control barely averted what could have likely been the worst disaster in aviation history. An Air Canada jet nearly landed on a crowded taxiway. With less than 100 feet separating Air Canada flight 759 and the other planes on the taxiway, the tower gave the “go around” order at the last possible second.
It is entirely possible that all 140 people on board, along with hundreds more on the other four planes on the taxiway, would have been killed. This is one of the scariest near misses ever.
Another mishap at SFO??
On Sunday another Air Canada jet disregarded air traffic control orders, nearly landing on an occupied runway. Inbound Air Canada flight 781 from Montreal was given clearance to land, but the tower later gave the order to go around, as there was another aircraft on the runway. The request to abort the landing was made no less than six times in a minute. The Air Canada Airbus A320 didn’t respond.
The SFO tower eventually had to use a “red light gun” (something of which I’ve never heard), to attempt to signal the inbound aircraft. This is standard procedure in this situation. The crew didn’t respond to this either and continued to land. Fortunately, the other plane had cleared the runway before the A320 touched down.
The FAA is investigating the incident. After landing, the Air Canada crew informed the tower that they had a radio problem.
So…is it the Canadians? Or is it SFO?
Ok…so two data points aren’t really enough to honestly correlate anything. But it’s interesting that there were back-to-back incidents involving the same airport and same airline.
Supposedly, San Francisco International Airport can be “tricky” at night. I’ve never thought of it as tricky. Typically Lindbergh Field, or that crazy airport in Nepal, come to mind first when I think of tricky airports. But I’m not a pilot, so what do I really know. There are definitely others that concur that SFO is unique.
Let’s just hope that the FAA gets things sorted out to keep us all safer. This has me a bit unnerved, as I typically fly through SFO several times per year.
Featured image courtesy of Raimond Spekking under CC 4.0 license.Â
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it’s possibly a combination of parallel runways way too close to each other (both pairs have the same issue) and pilots not as overly-hyper-alert since the most typical landing is south-to-north with a straight glide down over water with virtually no obstacles to avoid, nonexistent wind sheer, and no last-minute maneuvers required either.
I did wonder if lack of alertness might be an issue. I’ve heard that driving has been shown to be so. When something becomes “too easy”, people get complacent, and this leads to accidents.
The primary SFO airport configuration is called the “West Plan” operation. Landing 28L/R, Departing 1L/R. IT IS NOT “landing typically south to north.” When stormy weather is in the area, usually with strong south winds, the configuration is called the “Southeast Plan” operation. Landing 19L/R, Departing 10L/R. There are variations for strong west (Straight 28) or east winds (very rare). The SFO operation is a high workload environment for flight crews and ATC. Most carriers require a specific “route check” for the airport. The distance between the runway center lines (28L/R & 19L/R) is narrow (700 ft), which contributes to the the complexity, not complacency. If you would like a more in depth description of the operation, just ask.