Wow - Nearly a huge air disaster

SAN FRANCISCO — In what one aviation expert called a near-miss of what could have been the largest aviation disaster ever, an Air Canada pilot on Friday narrowly avoided a tragic mistake: landing on the San Francisco International Airport taxiway instead of the runway.

Sitting on Taxiway C shortly before midnight were four airplanes full of passengers and fuel awaiting permission to take off, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which is investigating the “rare” incident. An air traffic controller sent the descending Air Canada Airbus 320 on a “go-around” — an unusual event where pilots must pull up and circle around to try again — before the safe landing, according to the federal agency.

FAA investigators are still trying to determine how close the Air Canada aircraft came to landing and potentially crashing into the four aircraft below, but the apparent pilot error already has the aviation industry buzzing.

“If it is true, what happened probably came close to the greatest aviation disaster in history,” said retired United Airlines Capt. Ross Aimer, CEO of Aero Consulting Experts. He said he’s been contacted by pilots from across the country about the incident.

“If you could imagine an Airbus colliding with four passenger aircraft wide bodies, full of fuel and passengers, then you can imagine how horrific this could have been,” he said.

Peter Fitzpatrick, an Air Canada spokesman, said Flight AC759 from Toronto “landed normally without incident” after the go-around.

MiamiSpartan wrote:What is considered a near miss in aviation? Paging pulling69!

It's just that near miss sounds really close to us laymen, and makes me think of it being a few feet. But it seems like when I've read/heard stories about near misses, they say how two planes came within 1000 feet of each other or something (I'm just making up that number of feet, I think, it could be 100 feet, but it still always seems like it's not as near as the visuals that the phrase "near miss" puts in my head). I get that planes are big, heavy, difficult to change direction quickly, and leave big disturbances of air that can impact other planes, so I'm not downplaying what is considered a near miss.

The way they write it in these articles just makes me visualize that the pilot did this emergency pull up, as his wheels came inches from the planes on the ground. I know, I've been watching too many movies.

But I'd also think that the pilot in the landing airplane would be able to see that there are 4 fucking planes on the runway that he's about to land on. Midnight or not, it says it was a clear night, and planes and runways are all lit up pretty well.

LooseGoose wrote:LOL....2 statements of "Fake news" this morning so far - Earhart and the Plane. Keep in mind the OP is simply linking what the media is writing. You know, the media that you find trustworthy on the things you want to believe.

pulling69 wrote:Looking at the altitude log he was told to "go around" at 1100 feet so not a real close near miss... Also the story claims that a go around is an unusual event.....not really.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/ACA759/history/20170708/0055Z/CYYZ/KSFO/tracklog