15 July, 2017
California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones was on the flight from Toronto returning from a conference of insurance regulators when the pilot mistakenly made his approach toward the taxiway Friday night instead of the nearby runway.
Passengers were not told about the near-calamity after the plane landed safely, Jones said. No injuries were reported.
Air Canada flight 759 from Toronto to San Francisco came within 30 metres of what could have been one of the worst disasters in aviation history, according to the brief preliminary summary of the July 7 incident released by the Transportation Safety Board (TSB).
A top California state official said he was a passenger on an Air Canada jet that almost landed on a taxiway where four other planes were sitting rather than the designated runway at San Francisco International Airport earlier this week.
Flight AC759 had already travelled nearly 400 metres over the taxiway before aborting the landing, the board's report added. According to the FAA, which is now investigating the "rare" incident, the event took place a little before midnight.
An investigation into the incident by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is ongoing.
There were 140 people on the Air Canada flight, and hundreds more on the planes on the ground.
The taxiway, which provides lanes for aircraft to travel between runways and terminals for both landing and takeoff, are distinguished by different coloured lights. Spokesman from the San Francisco International Airport also did not comment on the incident. In 1991, a US Air Boeing 737 landed on top of a SkyWest Airlines regional airliner killing more than 30 people.
There are several cases in the United States when landing planes either hit another aircraft on the ground or barely cleared one.
"Where is this guy going? He's on the taxiway".
In the clip, the Air Canada pilot is heard requesting permission to land and is given the go-ahead from the control tower before another pilot issues a warning.
An exchange recorded by the website LiveATC.net provided some details on the incident involving the Air Canada flight.
The investigators from FAA are still trying to understand how near the aircraft came to landing on the airport's taxiway and potentially crashing into the four airplanes, which were standing.
