Air Canada almost lands on taxiway at SFO

Aviation experts have called the incident “extremely close,” and narrowly avoiding one of the worst aviation disasters ever.

SAN FRANCISCO — A wayward Air Canada pilot did not abort his landing last week until his plane had already overflown an SFO taxiway for a quarter mile, passing a mere 100 feet above the first two of four fully-loaded passenger jets awaiting departure, according to preliminary data from Canadian investigators released Thursday.

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/07/13/canadian-aviation-officials-determine-just-how-close-air-canada-flight-got-to-sfo-airplanes/

As a non-professional pilot and just a Flight Sim dork, I always tune to the ILS if there is one when assigned to the runway for landing. Now I'm just a lame Flight Sim pilot. So how in God's name does a Pro pilot not tune to the ILS which also has DME when making the landing? I for one would always tune to the ILS even though I may make a visual approach, I'd use the ILS for situational awareness. Not only that, but when I flew the PMDG 737 in FS2004, I always watched my ND for correct runway lineup.

Here's the ILS Info. http://www.airnav.com/airport/KSFO

Harrison Ford once landed on the taxiway, but seen as how he's an actor he kept his license. I bet this pilot has to find a new line of work.

This sounds a little more serious than just a near miss. The Air Canada flight was within 30m of landing on the aircraft on the ground, and only pulled up after one of the pilots on the ground asked where he was going. 30m is not much room when you're travelling at 120+ knots.

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/air-canada-sfo-near-collision-1.4204738

I suspect this is more complicated than just not having the ILS turned on (was the ILS even turned on or operative?).

https://avherald.com/h?article=4ab79f58&opt=0

Cannot tell what the viz was - crew called a visual approach. What local time - dusk, into sun/haze? were the runway lights/approach lights on? Lots left to find out

According to the news report the landing pilot mistook the lights of the aircraft lined up on the taxiway for the runway lights. One of the pilots on the ground reported to ATC, who then ordered the landing plane to go around.

This is regarded within the industry as a media frenzy over nothing - not even a near-miss.

They probably would have said that about Tenerife North in 1977, if Van Zanten had managed to clear the Pan Am 747... but he didn't and we all know what happened. The airline industry does seem to have a habit of playing down incidents such as this, no way a routine missed approach, which had the potential to kill 100's of people.

It looks like the crew were not expecting to see the situation presented on the approach. It appears they were flying the "Quiet Bridge Visual" (http://155.178.201.160/d-tpp/1707/00375QUIETBRIDGE_VIS28LR.PDF) which requires a non-aligned approach to 6 nm from the airport, then line up for the visual. They were cleared to land 28R. It appears that they may have mistaken 28R for 28L and were looking for 28R where the taxiway C is in fact. The approach lights may have been not operating on 28L so the only lights visible may have been 28R, which could have led to the confusion. Also, it seems they had already begun the go around when so directed by the tower, but the United Flight 001 pilot who transmitted on the Tower frequency just may have saved the day. As mentioned above, it will be interesting to see if the Airbus version of FMC s/w auto tunes the ILS when on an RNAV approach. Another factor I've seen discussed is that this crew was on 3 AM body time after what may have been a long day.

And indeed, this was a very near thing.