Friends keep asking me about the Air Canada Airbus that nearly collided with planes on a taxiway at SFO on July 7. The NTSB preliminary report is now available (Incident Number DCA17IA148). It says “The flight descended below 100 feet above the ground and initiated a go-around after overflying the first airplane on the taxiway.” Given the crazy brightness of transport jet landing lights, one big open question is why the pilots of the planes on the taxiway didn’t notice the Air Canada crew’s mistake earlier. If you want to get updates on the NTSB’s work, just visit their main aviation query page and enter “DCA17IA148” near the bottom of the form (“Accident Number” field).
6 thoughts on “NTSB Preliminary Report on the Air Canada plane flying low over the SFO taxiway”
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So what happens when a pilot does this? Is it a serious demerit or just something that is forgotten about?
MVI5: I’m not sure. In the case of Harrison Ford the FAA decided not to take any action. However, he was never truly in conflict with another aircraft. These Air Canada pilots, however, created a “loss of separation,” which is generally treated more seriously (see https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/ATCO_Actions_in_Case_of_Loss_of_Separation for some background).
Well, twy C and rw 28 are only about 500 feet apart (centerline to centerline). On a mile final, this would only be a 5 degree offset, and as a pilot on the ground, I could very easily imagine attributing that to a crosswind correction.
Case in point, as I was driving down past Newark Airport last weekend, I saw a jet on a couple mile final that was pointed right towards me, but of course the wind drift eventually had it touch down on the runway instead of in my sunroof.
Isaac: Excellent point. Thanks. I should have mentioned that the METARs show that the winds were calm by jet standards at the time.
METAR KSFO 080656Z 29009KT 10SM CLR 16/09 A2992
July 7, 2017 at 2356 PDT (source: NTSB report) is July 8, 2017 at 0656Z, no? So the wind was from 290 true down a runway that is 284 magnetic/298 true (source: http://airnav.com/airport/KSFO )..
Good point Phil. I could imagine some pilots simply not paying attention to the outside world (especially the ones that were further back in line), and/or rationalizing the landing lights in their face as caused by a possible crosswind, and just accepting it without thinking about the specific conditions that day.
But like you said, I would think that at least a few would have considered the wind being basically right down the runway, and that none of the preceeding landing airplanes had approached with a crab angle, and said something earlier.
That was truly a close call. A jet at 100 ft AGL has sluggish throttle response, although I presume the 100 ft altitude was after bottoming out the throttle response and restoring stable climb. BOTH Air Canada pilots should get severe penalties. It is not the responsibility of pilots on a taxiway to wave off incompetent pilots about to land on them. Only the pilot(s) on approach have a properly aligned view of the runway.