Thousands of people read reports of last July’s near collision on the ground at San Francisco International Airport when an Air Canada flight nearly landed on a taxiway. Until the NTSB last week opened the docket of information related to the incident, almost no one realized just how close all the aircraft involved came to being part of a major ground collision.
Close Call at San Francisco Airport was Closer than Anyone Thought
Key Takeaways:
- An Air Canada flight nearly landed on a crowded taxiway at San Francisco International Airport in July 2017, coming much closer to a major ground collision than initially reported.
- The incident occurred during a nighttime visual approach where the pilots became confused about the runways and neglected to use navigational backups, descending below 100 feet before executing a go-around.
- The tower controller did not detect the error, and the FAA subsequently banned the practice of combining tower and ground control positions at SFO, suggesting potential workload issues contributed to the near-miss.
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