Air Canada pilot narrowly avoids landing on four passenger planes
An Air Canada jet was close to causing the biggest disaster in aviation history by nearly landing on four other passenger planes on Friday.
The Airbus A320 was supposed to land at San Francisco’s 28R runway but instead headed towards the parallel taxiway that is for planes about to take off.
The incident occurred at 11:56 on Friday night as the Air Canada jet carried 135 passengers and five crew members.
The terrifying close call could have claimed more than a thousand lives.
Retired United Airlines Captain Ross Aimer, CEO of Aero Consulting Experts, told The Mercury News, “If it is true, what happened probably came close to the greatest aviation disaster in history.”
The near-miss was captured in air traffic control audio posted online.
The Air Canada pilot is heard asking SFO control if he’s heading towards the correct runway.
“Tower control, I just want to confirm that – this is Air Canada 759, I can see some lights on the runway there, across the runway, can you confirm we're good to land?”
“Canada 759, confirmed to land on runway 28-Right, there is no one on 28-Right but you.”
However, the pilot wasn’t lined up for the correct runway and was instead heading towards Taxiway C, where four planes were positioned for take-off.
As the Air Canada jet pilot thanks the tower, another pilot quickly buzzes in saying, “Where is this guy going? He's on the Taxiway!”
The tower immediately directs the plane to “go around” and it peels off, narrowly avoiding a collision with the other planes.
“Air Canada flew directly over us,” another pilot says.
“Yeah, I saw that guys,” replies the tower.
Captain Aimer said if the tower hadn’t quickly redirected the jet plane, disaster would have ensued.
“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.