Air Canada AC759 near miss

Hi,

BBC news link

I'm sure someone here can offer up an explanation of how the hell this can happen, seconds away from a disaster?

Shouldn't this be impossible in this day and age?

Thanks

Sean

a reply to: ioweagle

It happens a lot more than you realize.



This is the runway he was supposed to land on, and the taxiway he lined up on. They misidentified the taxiway as the runway, which with multiple parallel runways can happen. If they thought 28L was a taxiway, that would put Taxiway Charlie, the one they lined up on, as 28R, and 28R as 28L, instead of everything being the way it's supposed to be. The big thing here is that they caught it in plenty of time.

a reply to: ioweagle

Sadly its all too possible.

The investigation is ongoing and there are alot of details that need to be filled in.

Like was there only one controller on in the tower? etc etc etc.

One runway was closed and dark so from the air the taxiway may have looked like 28R since 28L was dark

Etc etc

WOW!

How in the heck?

Ill dig through my archives to see if I have a nighttime picture of what SFO approach looks from our king air. but runway and taxiway lights are different so we may have also had a breakdown in Crew Resource management by the flight crew as well.

Had he impacted the taxiway it would have been one of the biggest disaster in US history if not the world. As I have said in other forums, Hospitals in the the US lack surge capacity to deal with true mass casualty incidents

a reply to: Zaphod58

Thanks for the reply, I can see how parallel runways could be an issue but assumed there would be some fail safes in the industry.

Also the BBC report puts it at 30m away from other aircraft, is that plenty of time or do you think the BBC report is likely inaccurate? (Or maybe 30m is plenty of time?)

a reply to: ioweagle

That's actually probably pretty close. That's a couple seconds to react, and spool the engines up, so while it's a lot closer than it should have been, it wasn't so close that there was a very real risk of another Tenerife.

The problem with the aviation industry right now is there is far too much reliance on automation. It's lead to several accidents and close calls like this, because the pilots assume the automation will keep them safe, and meanwhile it's doing what it's supposed to do, and putting them into a bad situation.

a reply to: FredT

Would be interesting to get an idea of what it actually looks like.

Looks like it may be a disaster waiting to happen somewhere in the world?

Still getting my head around the fact that the mistake seams likely to happen at some point, I guess a lamen like me expects all kinds of safety nets in place to prevent this!

a reply to: ioweagle

www.usatoday.com...

en.wikipedia.org...

They've also been known to land at the wrong airport. Sometimes the airport they landed at was so small they had to offload all the cargo, and most of the fuel to get them light enough to go to a nearby bigger airport to reload and fly on.

a reply to: ioweagle

Probably an inside joke among pilots but there are visual alterations reported with the use of Viagra including vision with a blue tint, difficulty distinguishing between blue and green light and light sensitivity. In fact, pilots are prohibited by the FAA from flying within 12 hours of using Viagra.

originally posted by: ioweagle
a reply to: FredT

Would be interesting to get an idea of what it actually looks like.

Sorry I could not find the SFO clips but here is us landing 30 miles to the south at Moffett Federal Field. It gives you an idea though of what the pilot sees. I a bit back in the aircraft (we did not have a patient on board) and I lose sight of the runway as he flares but you can see the lights. What you don't hear because we are on comms is the altitude warning calls by the avionics system "500 feet" etc

I've landed on that very runway many times. It would be absurdly easy to get yourself oriented one notch to the right. Although many people reading about this are freaking out, note that neither the pilot nor ATC lost their cool and everyone did as they were supposed to to get out of the situation. ATC said "Go around" and this was immediately acknowledged and complied with by the plane. Reminds me of Sully landing in the Hudson. The transcript was similar: No freaking out, just calm determination in an attempt to fix the situation from everyone concerned.

I saw this in an article, FWIW

The aircraft went around from about 400 feet MSL.

In BBC's animation in the OP, it looked like the plane was on path to hit only two of the planes on the taxiway, if they had proceed with the landing. In this animation below, however, it looks like it was on path to hit all four planes on the taxiway. Which version is true?

a reply to: ioweagle

Isn't that pretty much the same thing, or at least quite similar to, what Harrison Ford did just a few months back?

Just on a much larger scale?

a reply to: Hellmutt

If they had gone straight ahead on the taxiway they would have taken out all four of the planes. At least two of them would have probably been destroyed, the back one might have come through with damage, but most likely all four of them would have been hit and destroyed.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I heard one of the pilots on the taxiway realized was was to occur and raidoed the tower..and there was only one person conversing with the pilots on the ground and the pilots in the air

That's why I got out......back in 1978 it was bad......at D F W.....

My buddies dad was a FFA inspector and we were shocked.....after learning on an early computer about the one mile......one minute separation on approach....

According to the NTSB, the plane was much lower than previously reported. As low as 59 feet. That 3-4 feet above the tailfin of the 787 that was lined up.....

www.npr.org...