*Tons of emails and comments - some tweets also - asking for this incident. Not much of an audio but I hope it helps to understand what happened. Glad it was just a close go around over some big guys :D*
VASAviation - I saw this on the news this morning. Apparently it would've been the worst accident in the history of civil aviation. How is this even possible? How can you, with an ATPL, commit that kind of mistake?
The two runways 28L and 28R are parallel and right next to each other. The pilots might have expected to see the lights of 28L and 28R, but the lights of 28L may have been switched off if it was not in use. So if they saw the lights of 28R and taxiway C they might have believed those to be 28L and 28R.
The only thing I can think of is that they weren't using their ILS as backup... it would have shown them off centerline. Frankly, if your eyes and your instrumentation don't agree, it's better to take a go-around and make sure.
This had potential to become one of the biggest tragedies in the history of aviation. 5 fully loaded (passenger?) planes colliding with each other. Holyshit...
Maybe it if were ramming directly into the first one, but instead it could have struck the top-half of the first one, then full-on into the second, all that debris slides into the third, fireball from all of the full-fuel planes on the ground flows over the fourth. It'd be horrendous.
A Conneely What's silly about that? A plane crashing into 5 others that are waiting to take off would easily be the worst unintentional loss of life from a single aviation incident.
That pilot saved hundreds of lives by being aware of his surroundings and asking a single question. Imagine if he had turned away to check something in his plane on that final approach. This is the kind of thing that rewrites history. A single moment and a single action.
The pilots on the ground saved lives. One pilot turned on all his lights and another told air traffic control that Air Canada was lined up on the taxiway. They saved lives, not the air canada pilot.
@@patrickoneill5249 - It was the PR 115 pilot who turned on his lights. Another thing that could have helped: one of those pilots getting on the frequency and saying: 28 Right, go around (which would also have alerted the controller). Had AC759 waited to pull up, he would have barely cleared the PR115 stabilizer and then plowed into UA863 behind him.
Yeah, the pilot wasn't putting 2 and 2 together right but he could tell something wasn't adding up so he was checking with the tower, trying to figure out what was off and he responded instantly when he realized.
Thats probably what prevented the disaster. He mistook the taxiway for the runway, but he noticed something was off, even if he couldn't tell what, so he was still alert and ready. As soon as he got the go around order and realized, instantly got out of there. Making up for an earlier mistake with attentiveness and alertness to his surroundings.
Some of the main issues that no one is considering was the fact that at this time, the approach lights leading up to both runways were not in service and not on. Another thing to consider is the fact that 28L did not have its lights on that night either. Using these two *important* facts it is quite understandable what caused this error. Typically with 28R being further away from the terminals, pilots would usually be using taxiway Foxtrot (the taxiway parallel to the left of 28L) to get to 28R. With the lights being off on 28L this night, the pilots were sent across both of the runways to taxiway Charlie where aircraft would line up to the right on 28R. These two occurrences here with the approach lights leading up to the runway not being on and with all aircraft on Charlie, everything makes sense. It is dark and with no approach lights on, you can not tell where the runways are other than their actual runway lights. With one runways lights off, it will appear that all of the aircraft on Charlie are the lights of 28R and the actual runway lights look like 28L. If you're thinking that this makes no sense and that the pilot would see the flashing lights on the taxiway look at "FAA 4-3-23 Use of Aircraft Lights, Section A" and you will see that it specifically mentions that the flashing strobe lights are to not be used on taxiways until you have lined up onto the runway. This is exactly why when the landing lights were on all of the aircraft on the taxiway, it would look exactly like a runway. Now I know you may disagree with me and think that I am totally wrong but I hope that you have understood what I was saying. After all, I know how to fly a plane with 352 confirmed kills so, if you used to fly an IL-2, don't even talk to me or I'll shoot you down.
Ananias Andrada That's what they say, but I'm sure it wouldn't have been the worst. Tenerife has probably been the worst air disaster in history. This wouldn't come close.
lets assume all the planes were united( execpt the a340) just to make things easier. united 737 800 can carry 166 people full load . their 787 9 can carry 252 people full load, soo 252 plus 252 plus 166 is 670 people, and say the a340 was sas they carry 247. thats 970 people. wayyyyyy worse the tenerife. i could be wrong. a lot of the time flights are under booked. but that is my math done. all the same a life is a life.
I'm sure he would have gone around on his own. He pretty much already realized that there was something "on the runway". Only an idiot would have continued to land.
+Jayne Gus. Absolutely! 5 planes in total.... 4 fully fueled and parked in a nice neat row. good thing the tower was on the ball or this could've been aviation's darkest day by far.
Solowarrior1221 UAL 1 was the first to discover things go wrong, the tower only realized that later, even the ACA had raised doubt about unusual lights on the “unoccupied rwy” beforehand.
@@sonickunckle Before judging the tower, keep in mind this was at night, with a visual approach. It's virtually impossible to tell exactly where someone is lined up until they're almost on top of you, as happened here. Even in the daylight, this would be hard to tell, as evidenced by Asiana 214, when the flight came in too low, but there was never a directive from ATC to go around.
Michael Bruno I’m not saying the tower had did wrong, but it was clear that he could do better by spending a few seconds in scanning nearby rwys and taxiways, which should alert him to send the ACA go around when he saw the queue on Taxiway Charlie. Another way the tower could do was to have ACA go around first and look what rwy/taxiways would actually matchup with the “rwy” ACA was lining up, the tower may took scolding for overreacting but the incident would be totally eliminated.
for those of you wondering, there were a total of five flights involved here, and over 1,000 lives. the flights involved were (from left to right on the taxiway + ac759)... *united airlines flight 1118* - _san francisco to cancun, 177 on board a 737-900ER_ *united airlines flight 863* - _san francisco to sydney, 252 on board a 787-9_ *philippine airlines flight 115* - _san francisco to manila, 264 on board an a340-300_ *united airlines flight 1* - _san francisco to singapore, 252 on board a 787-9_ *air canada flight 759* - _toronto to san francisco, 146 on board an a320-200_ there were a total of *1091 souls* on all of those planes. later analysis showed that the a320 got within *29 feet* of those aircraft and was less than *14 feet* away from the tail of the a340. if those pilots had waited five more seconds to abort the landing, they would have certainly hit flight 863. and if this occurred, it's safe to say that they would have plowed into the 737 behind them, likely killing everyone on all 3 planes. this alone would have resulted in *575 deaths,* which is 8 shy of the total death toll of the tenerife disaster. and that's not accounting for the flying debris and fire impacting the aircraft ahead. it truly is a miracle that the crew (though fatigued and obviously not fit to fly) realized what was happening. of course this is an inconvenience for everyone involved to fill out paperwork and all, but it's much better than the alternative.
If they hadn't aborted the landing they would probably have crashed into the A340 as well. So that's everyone dead on 4 planes, not 3. UA1 would have been the only one to avoid the disaster.
@@KasabianFan44 having seen the actual video from the tower, AC759 would have just hit the tail of the 2nd plane and probably hit the 3rd full, but that impact would potentially already have slowed things down so the 4th would only be severely impacted through e.g. a fire. Just saying that 3 planes fully destroyed would be the worst outcome, not 4.
Regarding the people claiming that this would have ended in a crash had the UAL pilot not warned Tower: it should be noted that, according to the NTSB report, the Air Canada pilot had already initiated go-around due to uncertainty roughly 4 seconds before being receiving a "go-around" command from Tower.
"We see some lights on the runway there".."yeah buddy you're landing on a taxiway, go around and I talk to you later, when I'll give you a number to call ;)"
F Huber its canada, worst that could happen is "oh I'm so very sorry." "you know what, you're fine just please make sure to be careful next time, please?"
A friendly reminder…ATC isn’t the only one who can call for a go-around. A pilot of another plane can also give that instruction, as safety is everyone’s responsibility. The UA1 pilot could have said: 28R, go around, you are lined up for the taxiway and not the runway. (There is another video where landing at CDG, with a United plane going for the wrong runway, an EasyJet pilot orders the United plane to go around to avoid an incursion.) This would get the tower’s attention.
From Wikipedia: Following the incident, in early August the Federal Aviation Administration modified nighttime landing procedures at SFO, forbidding visual approaches at night "when an adjacent parallel runway is closed" and replacing them with instrument approaches, either ILS or satellite-based, and requiring two air traffic controllers in the control tower "until the late-night arrival rush is over". Air Canada has stopped using flight number 759.
Yeah the Air Canada pilot isn't an idiot. This looked wrong to him which is why he's checking with tower. Honestly this was on the airport for not having 22L lit with aircraft on visual approach. With 22L dark, 22R lit and lights on the taxiway the lit runway looks like 22L and the taxiway looks an awful lot like 22R to a tired pilot.
@@hagamapama Come on you gotta give SFO more credit than that. The lights on 22R and the taxiway were a different color. Hence why every other plane had no issue landing correctly on 22R. The fault here is on Transport Canada for allowing a pilot to fly with no sleep for the past 19 (!!) hours. Thankfully you can no longer use the visual approach at SFO now when one of the runways is down.
Well it does actually sound like they realized their mistake before the tower told them though, because when the tower tells them to go around he says "in the go around". It was very close though.
There was just one runway lighted up on that night and the AC pilots didn't knew so they lined up on the taxiway thinking the other lights were the left runway.
there was a flashing light up X on the landing area of the closed and otherwise unlighted runway, to indicate that it was closed. Maybe the air canada pilots misinterpreted it or missed it somehow?
The runway did have a flashing light indicating that it was closed. It was the normal lights that were turned off during maintenance, but it's not like the runway was invisible. The Air Canada pilots just fucked up and thought the taxiway was one of the runways (thankfully they were noticed before disaster struck, and fixed their error).
Flo Agustine AC: ACA759, cleared to butter the bread on taxiway Charlie. TWR: A759, negative, all realism effects are turned on, go around. AC: realism effects turned on, going around, A759. United: What a noob...
LOL well @asterianBlue, you do make a pretty convincing argument...except for the fact that logic dictates that if you have a shit load more commercial airlines, then you're gonna have more fuck ups. #JS
It's scary when you realize that this almost certainly would've put Tenerife to shame, and it probably would've happened had the flight crews on the ground not said anything. Hats off to them!
The forgotten thing here is: another aircrew can issue a go-around order. What if the UA crew had said: 28 Right, go around, you’re lined up with the taxiway and not the runway. Remember, AC759 had challenged the instructions before.
@@maksatsagidullayev4426 The planes on the taxiway didn't have their taxi lights on bright, and the construction vehicles' lights made it look like it was a runway. The FAA concluded in a simulation that the taxiway DID look like a runway during the night operation. And the plane that landed before Air Canada also thought it was a runway.
Pretty impressed with how calm they all sound considering they were less than 20 feet from disaster. Planes should be using ILS to prevent these mistakes where it's available.
Apparently they forgot to tune into the ILS frequency as a visual approach is the only scenario where they'd have to change their radio frequency manually. And they can't do an ILS approach due to needing to curve over the bridges that was in the approach path.
And UA1 is loaded full up with fuel for an 8,400-mile flight to Singapore. That could have been a real disaster. Given the flight total, I have to imagine that they have 2 complete crews for that trip (10 flight attendants and 4 pilots). As for a time, this would be around 11 PM, as that is when UA1 goes out for its 16-hour flight.
Its all about the money. It is in some airlines SOP to choose a Visual over an ILS because it is believed that doing visual saves about 1-5 minutes, all that to save up some fuel. It does not seem a lot, but multiply that to all the Air Canada's fleet, and that's where the saving comes up.
If anyone’s coming back to check in on what happened; From what I learned is that the lights on 28L were turned off that night, unknown to the Air Canada crew, they saw the lights for 28R and thought it must be the 28L. This is why they lined up for the taxiway thinking it is their runway and why they asked if they were cleared to land because they saw airplane lights on what they thought was their runway.
Wow. Hadn't seen the NTSB's release of the security camera footage but something stood out to me that could have been part of what spurred the confusion. The beacons on the aircraft holding on the taxiway were synced in progression, somehow. 1 - 2 - 3, blip blip blip. Would have been a series of beacons proceeding back down the taxiway in almost perfect timing. It broke up as the A320 got very close, but during what would have been the initial descent and confusion, you have those accidentally timed beacons.
Riley Johnson - Recent reports state the Air Canada pilot did start a go around 2.5 seconds before the Tower told him to do that In addition, the PAL Airbus 340 flashed its landing lights to warn off Air Canada.
It's nice that they're not completely helpless aside from comm. I guess it doesn't happen often that a plane has to flash their lights on the ground or in general. I'm wondering whether they were on the same frequency, whether Air Canada heard the UA pilot complain. 2.5 seconds would indicate he heard that and then reacted immediately.
Yes they heard the pilot complain and also porbably saw the landing lights on the other airplane and aborted the landing 6-10 seconds before AC instructed them to go around. These Vasaviation Simulations are often inaccurate in representing a correct chronology of events (which is especially in this case extremely important) thus giving false impressions.
TEHEPICBROS lol it just you. yyz-sfo is about 5 hours, not very long at all. the only possibility woukd be that crew did not have minimum rest, or this was not their headstart leg on that pairing.
TEHEPICBROS They have 2 pilots on board, and if the flight wasn't too turbulent autopilot would have flown them the whole way. AP would have made sure they weren't too tired for a landing.
Fernando Vilches a pilot still has to stay awake, unless it's a long haul, in which they swap mid flight. Not sure if 5 hours counts as a medium haul or a long haul however
I saw a documentary about this one. It was maintanance on the other runway and thus the lights were turned off. Pilots expected to see 2 runways and that is why they mistaken the taxi with a runway.
In fairness to the pilot he did state that he could see lights on the runway and asked if it was clear. As there were problems with landing lights that night it would have been prudent to call a go around at that point. ATC chose to ignore this information. Not wise.Lucky the pilot on the ground spoke up or.....
Agreed. As soon as the pilot mentioned seeing something on the runway on which he's supposed to land, that should have triggered an immediate go-around call from ATC.
For anyone wondering how this could have happened, 28 left was closed (for maintenance if memory serves) and the lights turned off as it wasn't to be used. Thus, Air Canada heard an instruction to go to the right runway, and with the lights off on 28L, 28R now looked like 28L and the taxiway as 28R
Doesn't ATC have the capability to see if a plane isn't lined up with the right runway on the approach? AC759 actually questioned the instruction when he saw lights on the runway ahead, but ATC confirmed without even checking 759's position.
And the Air Canada pilot should have said I have the number and right now I'm asking them why the fuck you didn't have any runway lights on on either of the runways.
@Julian Moses He said that the lights are not functional on both runway. You said that they were on 28R, that is pointless regards the objection that celticlofts rise. Then i proceed to explain to you why it was important that the lights was turn on on both runway (according to NTSB). Hope it clarify why i said that.
The news is saying Air Canada was within 100-200 feet above the taxiway. Minus about 50 feet for the tail of the planes on the ground, they were 50-150 feet within the worst aircraft collision in history.
Flight data shows they were 1.7 miles from the threshold and at 450 feet when the go around was commenced. Not nearly as close as the news is saying at all.
Michael Pearson: false information. From the NTSB report "ACA759 descended below 100 ft above the ground, and the flight crew advanced the thrust levers to initiate a go-around about the time it overflew the first airplane on the taxiway"
I work at SFO and I saw a small aircraft land on taxis way Charlie by mistake, taxis way Charlie is quite wide and may appear to look like a Rwy from a distant doing a VFR approach
UAL1 Cool as a cucumber while thinking omgholeees**t!!! ..."We're Ready!" to ATC...while thinking, "Let's go before he get's back around!" O-O Thanks VASAviation
AC759 reached a minimum altitude of 59 feet (18 m) above ground level, comparable to the 55 ft 10 in (17.02 m) tail height of a Boeing 787-9, two of which were on Taxiway C.
God bless the United pilot, the hero of the piece. His calm (hell it was like someone had just spilled a drink it was so calm 😂) interruption gave everyone else the composure and clarity in those vital seconds to produce a positive outcome. If he had lost the plot it could have been carnage. I don't know how the hell a tower doesn't know where it's aircraft are though, both from the tower and on radar?!
And this boys and girls is why airlines need to get RAAS installed into their aircraft. Had the aircraft on the ground been further down the taxiway and not immediately at the threshold, this might have ended very *very* badly.
Nick Cockayne *Technically* you are correct, RAAS doesn't do taxiway landing annunciations. The official product name from Honeywell is SmartLanding. However few people know it by that name and still call it "RAAS", since it's basically an evolution of the original RAAS software.
Guys, I kind of think the pilots of AC realized they drifted off course and started the go-around after the tower said "There's no one on the runway but you." Pilots see lights, ATC says it's clear: Cross-check failed. When the tower instructed the go-around, the pilot replied "IN the go-around now." I don't have enough "credible" information yet to know how severe it really was.
TonyP0927 Read this NTSB report and watch the airport surveillance clip. It was very close indeed. ACA missed the PAL A340 (2nd aircraft in line) by an estimated 10 feet or less. www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/DCA17IA148.aspx th-cam.com/video/oF7FR7TjnME/w-d-xo.html
It is pretty unusual for departing flights to use that taxiway. I've flown out of SFO 100's of times and have never been on that taxiway leaving on the 28s. They nearly always use the taxiway along 28L.
GrasponReality 28L seemed to be closed so apperently they could not use the taxiway crossings at the beginning of RWY's 28L/R. Maybe that is the reason why
Actually they use it quite a bit for heavies that are departing from the north side of the international terminal / UAL and using 28R. They cross them down field in front of the terminals and have them taxi up and around. Also heavy cargo uses that way to 28R as well.
YIKES! From the report: "ACA759 descended below 100 ft above the ground, and the flight crew advanced the thrust levers to initiate a go-around about the time it overflew the first airplane on the taxiway." So the A320 was in landing attitude, and at *below 100 ft* altitude, and only initiated the go-around while above the first airplane on the runway. This first plane being a 787, it's tail would be 55feet 6 inches from the ground. That leaves a clearance of **AT MOST** 44 feet 6 inches between the planes!!! (insert another 183 exclamation marks here.......)
Holy crap!! you need to make a full length investigative video about this incident. This was few seconds away from what could have been the worst aviation disaster in history. what the hell happened there? How can an A320 lineup for a taxiway with 5 jets sitting with full lights on? and kudos for united pilot for keeping his eys out and a prompt response.
A mistake was made - by someone. It's only because everyone involved was a thorough professional that the mistake was identified and rectified in a calm orderly manner. Air Canada crew spoke up when something looked wrong, Philippine Airlines flashed lights, United's Captain alerted Tower and Tower responded instantly and calmly and meanwhile the AC pilot had already aborted ("*In* the go-around, Air Canada 759") . Of course the mistake should not have happened but it could not have been handled better. What strikes me most is the complete lack of hysteria and hyperbole. About the most upset guy was the United pilot and all he did was make an observation to which the Tower responds laconically "Yes I saw". Like why are you making a big deal? Amazing.
lol made me wonder what crap the philippine airlines crew must deal with at some of their airports, knew how to wake sleeping pilots up with those lights.
Well, their advertising says "No one gets you there like Air Canada" that used to mean just late and without your bags, I guess it also includes within a few feet of your life !
Both pilots are very experienced in this incident. It's not some rookie first day on the job. There are several things working against the pilot when it happened. They were called in to fly the plane later in the day. This caused many problems: 1. They don't fly this route regularly, and they did not know that this route and late night approach requires a manual setting of their landing instruments. In all other routes this is automatic. This would have given them clues about their alignment to the runway. 2. They were awake for very long time and didn't prepare for the latenight work. You can even hear it in the recording when the first officer talked with the tower. 3. The pre-flight briefing was rushed. Only the captain was aware of a runway closure, and he did not make the connections of lights shutting down. They are also several things at the airport side: 1. This late night approach requires several turns over the river and bridges, and turn into the airport in a short final approach. This gives the pilot less time to verify and react to runways situations. The final turn is a left turn. 2. Parallel runway 28 Left was closed and lights shutdown for maintainence. As the pilots make a left turn, they will use the left runway as cue to align themselves to the right runway, but since left's lights are off, they assume the right runway is left, and the taxiway is the runway right. There are some additional lights at the end of the runway that should be different, but for the areas that the pilots want to land in (and the tired pilots tunnel vision on), the waiting aircrafts, by sheer coincidence, light up in the same way as the runway lights. There was a previous flight that made the same mistake, but fortunatley their instruments were tuned in, so they noticed. The airport did not remind later flights about it even though it has already happened once. The pilot made 2 mistakes: 1. They mistake the runway right as runway left, becaue the runway left was closed. 2. They continue to descend after tower mistook their situation and reassured they're clear. The pilots did 2 things right to avoid this disaster: 1. They called the tower to verify runway is clear when they see some other lights that's not quite right, which likely alarmed the pilots on the ground in taxiway to look up and check. And resulting the famous "Where's this guy going?" and a go-around 2. They were prepared to do a go-around before tower called for it, because they already felt something was not quite right. Those split seconds made a difference in this case. Improvements were made to airport procedures, airport equipments, and airplane equipments to prevent a "simple" mistake potentially cascading into castatrophic disasters. 1. They will be more Air traffic controls in the tower during night rush hours to give them more man power and awareness. They will also stop using visual approachs if any of the parrallel runways closed . They will also try to keep the lights on and look the same at night even for maintainance. 2. There are now equipment on both the airport and airplane to warn ATC and pilots if they are misaligned.
Good explanation. Blaming the crew is always easy. Did a 12 hr duty 2 days back and in the last landing, I was struggling to get my visual perception in. Fatigue is no joke.
That Air Canada was 10-15 feet from the tail of the 2nd aircraft. During landing that distance can become 0 ft in less than a second. Imagine if the Go Around was 1 second late.
Is it right the Tower answer "that's ok to land" after the pilot advise of lights on the landing runway? I´m not a pilot so don´t take me wrong but in my humble opinion the normal procedures should be: When a pilot warns TWR because of lights on the runway, the Tower should have answered immediately : "Go around !" and not answer like they did. "You may proceed because there are no lights in the runway". Because if the pilot was seeing lights on the runway, that only means that something was going VERY VERY WRONG and TWR should not allow the landing !!
That's why TWR said, "there is NO ONE on 28R but you" (caps for added emphasis). The "no one" part implies that there are no lights on the runway, and by then, ACA759 likely knew something was up.
@@wildgurgs3614 No, the "no one" indicates he has the runway to himself. If he sees aircraft on the "runway" after being told there is no one using the runway but himself, it's just another one of multiple indicators that what he's lined up with is not the runway he should be landing on.
How are you supposed to land on something you can’t see smh Yes runways have lights and bigger runways have lots and lots of lights so you can see everything you need to
@@bigblue207 The approach lights leading up to both runways were not in service and not on. 28L did not have its lights on that night either. This error is perfectly understandable
Canonical I didn’t know that was the case. Was there a NOTAM or something, or how did you know? If that’s the case then how were they supposed to have the runway in sight by the decision altitude or visual descent point? I’m not sure what instrument approach this is but assuming it’s ILS it would indicate lateral deflection. My original comment was snarkier than I meant it to be but I was trying to make the point that runways have lights (NEED lights) so the pilot can land, so just seeing lights where you’re trying to land isn’t necessarily a sign something is wrong
@0:41 Air Canada pilot acknowledges the tower's assurance that there's no one on the runway but them, but you can hear considerable doubt in his voice. He's not convinced at all
Since the visual flight approach lights are *VERY* different for a main runway, or a taxiway, I can only conclude that, because 28L was dark, the pilots minds were ' seeing what they normally expected to see '. They mistook the taxiway for 28R. But this still was an inexcusable thing for them to do.
I don’t want to judge this, but I wonder how could mistake runway with taxiway!? I can understand if this was a late night flight and tired eyes but there are 2 pilots to avoid this and many other kind of problems and nobody noticed? And the runway lights, PAPI lights and ALSF lights?
Daniel Guzmán They should have turned on ILS. that would have guided them (or just let the autopilot handle it) to the center of the runway. i know it was a visual approach, but turn on the ILS anyway.
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*Tons of emails and comments - some tweets also - asking for this incident. Not much of an audio but I hope it helps to understand what happened. Glad it was just a close go around over some big guys :D*
VASAviation - I saw this on the news this morning. Apparently it would've been the worst accident in the history of civil aviation. How is this even possible? How can you, with an ATPL, commit that kind of mistake?
Even if you have ATPL, you are still a human ;)
The two runways 28L and 28R are parallel and right next to each other. The pilots might have expected to see the lights of 28L and 28R, but the lights of 28L may have been switched off if it was not in use. So if they saw the lights of 28R and taxiway C they might have believed those to be 28L and 28R.
The only thing I can think of is that they weren't using their ILS as backup... it would have shown them off centerline. Frankly, if your eyes and your instrumentation don't agree, it's better to take a go-around and make sure.
I have been waiting for hours.
This had potential to become one of the biggest tragedies in the history of aviation. 5 fully loaded (passenger?) planes colliding with each other. Holyshit...
yup
Don't forget, everyone on the TW is fully laden with fuel
Maybe it if were ramming directly into the first one, but instead it could have struck the top-half of the first one, then full-on into the second, all that debris slides into the third, fireball from all of the full-fuel planes on the ground flows over the fourth. It'd be horrendous.
A Conneely What's silly about that? A plane crashing into 5 others that are waiting to take off would easily be the worst unintentional loss of life from a single aviation incident.
counterfit5 • Not to mention the crass way he put it in the first place. Ugh.
Bad way to have a Star Alliance Meeting
Edit: Thanks for the likes and comments folks! But seriously not a great pilot moment… yikes!
Boi.
loooool
Philippine for Star confirmed?
Underrated comment
Haha
United 1: "We're ready" translation: "get us the hell out of here before his next landing attempt!" 🤣
I made this exact comment and I didn’t even see yours 😂
Now that is a hoot
"Get us the blazers out of here!"
🤣🤣🤣
😂😂😂😂
I love the voice of the UAL pilot. He was not happy! I wouldn't be either!
"where's this guy going?"
United 1: "Can you please tell that Air Canada dude I have a wife and 4 children? Thanks."
makes sense. 5 planes full of passengers nearly got destroyed.
@Ng John If you're going to be like that, throw shade at Republic Airways and more importantly Chicago security, not United.
The United flight was probably delayed so they could drag a passenger off unwillingly.
Harrison Ford strikes again....
strikes back, surely?
*Almost strikes.
+clive ramsbotty from the jump seat
He did ?
SteelbeastsCavalry damnit! 7 months too late haha
That pilot saved hundreds of lives by being aware of his surroundings and asking a single question. Imagine if he had turned away to check something in his plane on that final approach. This is the kind of thing that rewrites history. A single moment and a single action.
The pilot also approached a taxiway to land that has completely different lights than the runway, truly a legend.
The pilots on the ground saved lives. One pilot turned on all his lights and another told air traffic control that Air Canada was lined up on the taxiway. They saved lives, not the air canada pilot.
He did, so did the pilot who turned on his lights. But "what is this guy doing?" isn't a clear command. The ideal response would have been "Go around"
@@patrickoneill5249 he obviously wasn't talking about the Air Canada pilot genius
@@patrickoneill5249 - It was the PR 115 pilot who turned on his lights. Another thing that could have helped: one of those pilots getting on the frequency and saying: 28 Right, go around (which would also have alerted the controller). Had AC759 waited to pull up, he would have barely cleared the PR115 stabilizer and then plowed into UA863 behind him.
At least the pilot was willing to question his instructions insteading of acting like a robot.
Yeah, the pilot wasn't putting 2 and 2 together right but he could tell something wasn't adding up so he was checking with the tower, trying to figure out what was off and he responded instantly when he realized.
Thats probably what prevented the disaster. He mistook the taxiway for the runway, but he noticed something was off, even if he couldn't tell what, so he was still alert and ready. As soon as he got the go around order and realized, instantly got out of there. Making up for an earlier mistake with attentiveness and alertness to his surroundings.
He was simply exercising the Harrison Ford approach! No Ewoks were harmed in this attempted landing.
ACA759 cleared for the Harrison Ford approach, runway charlie
David Madigan dang...
LOL
When he had to make that phone call, his Ewok was hurting...
Oh my, it becomes a specific term now... Harrison Ford Approach LOL!
Tower: "We're gonna get you going here"
United 1: "We're ready!"
Translation: GET ME TF OFF THIS TAXIWAY 😳
Some of the main issues that no one is considering was the fact that at this time, the approach lights leading up to both runways were not in service and not on. Another thing to consider is the fact that 28L did not have its lights on that night either. Using these two *important* facts it is quite understandable what caused this error.
Typically with 28R being further away from the terminals, pilots would usually be using taxiway Foxtrot (the taxiway parallel to the left of 28L) to get to 28R. With the lights being off on 28L this night, the pilots were sent across both of the runways to taxiway Charlie where aircraft would line up to the right on 28R.
These two occurrences here with the approach lights leading up to the runway not being on and with all aircraft on Charlie, everything makes sense. It is dark and with no approach lights on, you can not tell where the runways are other than their actual runway lights. With one runways lights off, it will appear that all of the aircraft on Charlie are the lights of 28R and the actual runway lights look like 28L.
If you're thinking that this makes no sense and that the pilot would see the flashing lights on the taxiway look at "FAA 4-3-23 Use of Aircraft Lights, Section A" and you will see that it specifically mentions that the flashing strobe lights are to not be used on taxiways until you have lined up onto the runway. This is exactly why when the landing lights were on all of the aircraft on the taxiway, it would look exactly like a runway.
Now I know you may disagree with me and think that I am totally wrong but I hope that you have understood what I was saying. After all, I know how to fly a plane with 352 confirmed kills so, if you used to fly an IL-2, don't even talk to me or I'll shoot you down.
Thanks Bubi
Eric that is the first thing that makes sense. If the ALS was out on 28R I can understand the error.
Erich Hartmann Carrying out Merkel's dirty work?
Erich Hartmann
Great explanation.
Excellent analysis !!!
Almost the worst aircrash disaster ever.
Ananias Andrada That's what they say, but I'm sure it wouldn't have been the worst. Tenerife has probably been the worst air disaster in history. This wouldn't come close.
joespeed1952 it would have been a strike involving 5 planes
Tenerife was two 747s... this would have involved two 787s, one A340, one B737 and the Canada A320.... start doing the math.
lets assume all the planes were united( execpt the a340) just to make things easier. united 737 800 can carry 166 people full load . their 787 9 can carry 252 people full load, soo 252 plus 252 plus 166 is 670 people, and say the a340 was sas they carry 247. thats 970 people. wayyyyyy worse the tenerife. i could be wrong. a lot of the time flights are under booked. but that is my math done. all the same a life is a life.
I'm sure he would have gone around on his own. He pretty much already realized that there was something "on the runway". Only an idiot would have continued to land.
If this incident was not averted - Tenerife would have been relegated to a minor accident by comparison.
+Jayne Gus. Absolutely! 5 planes in total.... 4 fully fueled and parked in a nice neat row. good thing the tower was on the ball or this could've been aviation's darkest day by far.
Nonsense!
Solowarrior1221 UAL 1 was the first to discover things go wrong, the tower only realized that later, even the ACA had raised doubt about unusual lights on the “unoccupied rwy” beforehand.
@@sonickunckle Before judging the tower, keep in mind this was at night, with a visual approach. It's virtually impossible to tell exactly where someone is lined up until they're almost on top of you, as happened here. Even in the daylight, this would be hard to tell, as evidenced by Asiana 214, when the flight came in too low, but there was never a directive from ATC to go around.
Michael Bruno I’m not saying the tower had did wrong, but it was clear that he could do better by spending a few seconds in scanning nearby rwys and taxiways, which should alert him to send the ACA go around when he saw the queue on Taxiway Charlie. Another way the tower could do was to have ACA go around first and look what rwy/taxiways would actually matchup with the “rwy” ACA was lining up, the tower may took scolding for overreacting but the incident would be totally eliminated.
for those of you wondering, there were a total of five flights involved here, and over 1,000 lives. the flights involved were (from left to right on the taxiway + ac759)...
*united airlines flight 1118* - _san francisco to cancun, 177 on board a 737-900ER_
*united airlines flight 863* - _san francisco to sydney, 252 on board a 787-9_
*philippine airlines flight 115* - _san francisco to manila, 264 on board an a340-300_
*united airlines flight 1* - _san francisco to singapore, 252 on board a 787-9_
*air canada flight 759* - _toronto to san francisco, 146 on board an a320-200_
there were a total of *1091 souls* on all of those planes. later analysis showed that the a320 got within *29 feet* of those aircraft and was less than *14 feet* away from the tail of the a340. if those pilots had waited five more seconds to abort the landing, they would have certainly hit flight 863. and if this occurred, it's safe to say that they would have plowed into the 737 behind them, likely killing everyone on all 3 planes. this alone would have resulted in *575 deaths,* which is 8 shy of the total death toll of the tenerife disaster. and that's not accounting for the flying debris and fire impacting the aircraft ahead.
it truly is a miracle that the crew (though fatigued and obviously not fit to fly) realized what was happening. of course this is an inconvenience for everyone involved to fill out paperwork and all, but it's much better than the alternative.
Under USA rules, the crew wouldn’t have been legal. They were legal under Transport Canada rules.
If they hadn't aborted the landing they would probably have crashed into the A340 as well. So that's everyone dead on 4 planes, not 3. UA1 would have been the only one to avoid the disaster.
Those numbers are full capacity numbers, in reality planes probably weren't full.
@@KasabianFan44 having seen the actual video from the tower, AC759 would have just hit the tail of the 2nd plane and probably hit the 3rd full, but that impact would potentially already have slowed things down so the 4th would only be severely impacted through e.g. a fire. Just saying that 3 planes fully destroyed would be the worst outcome, not 4.
Less than 14 🦶🏻🦶🏻?
Using what shoe size? 😆
"What is this guy doing" 😂😂
"Where is this guy going?"*
smzig They are pilots. They are tend to to stay calm in every goddamn situations. 😀
It's a good thing he said something. Better than doing nothing and letting someone land on you
"Where's this guy going?" = He's, like heading right for us
"He's lined up with the taxi way" = Hey idiots, someone messed up bad!
Pretty incredible to think those words might have saved 600+ lives..
Regarding the people claiming that this would have ended in a crash had the UAL pilot not warned Tower: it should be noted that, according to the NTSB report, the Air Canada pilot had already initiated go-around due to uncertainty roughly 4 seconds before being receiving a "go-around" command from Tower.
well, let's not ignore the philippine airlines pilot flashing their lights at them either
EXACTLY. AC 759 was already in Toga ages before SFO ATC usefully chips in with 'Air Canada, go around'.
I believe the technical term is "oops"
"We see some lights on the runway there".."yeah buddy you're landing on a taxiway, go around and I talk to you later, when I'll give you a number to call ;)"
Don't call us... we'll meet you at the gate to tear up your license.
hahahaha
Pudding is best :3
F Huber its canada, worst that could happen is "oh I'm so very sorry." "you know what, you're fine just please make sure to be careful next time, please?"
TruckerGuy135, since when is San Francisco California, part of Canada?
A friendly reminder…ATC isn’t the only one who can call for a go-around. A pilot of another plane can also give that instruction, as safety is everyone’s responsibility. The UA1 pilot could have said: 28R, go around, you are lined up for the taxiway and not the runway. (There is another video where landing at CDG, with a United plane going for the wrong runway, an EasyJet pilot orders the United plane to go around to avoid an incursion.) This would get the tower’s attention.
Any idea where I can hear that audio?
@@xjcrossx search: "Easyjet A320 tells United Boeing 787 to GO AROUND! | Serious Aircraft Incident"
The pilot in UAL1 has a weird vibe to him... i like him 😛
chill but alert
Such a bored, annoyed response to having an A320 attempting to land on you. *sigh*...he's on the taxiway...
thats pilots for you. nerves of steel
I suppose short and simple is what you want, not really a time for exposition.
Hahaha, he did sound like he was tattling on his little sister for taking a cookie afterwards tho: "that guy just flew directly over us". LOL.
From Wikipedia: Following the incident, in early August the Federal Aviation Administration modified nighttime landing procedures at SFO, forbidding visual approaches at night "when an adjacent parallel runway is closed" and replacing them with instrument approaches, either ILS or satellite-based, and requiring two air traffic controllers in the control tower "until the late-night arrival rush is over".
Air Canada has stopped using flight number 759.
Why stop using 759?
@@LMHermsdorff it's pilot superstition, this number is due for tragedy now
So at the end it was SFO's fault.
@Falcon is that so? So why they are no row number 13 in an aeroplane? Not superstitious?
@Falcon Let me guess, you're an atheist
Had Air Canada not asked that question, the United pilot might not have noticed. Good on them for checking.
Yeah the Air Canada pilot isn't an idiot. This looked wrong to him which is why he's checking with tower.
Honestly this was on the airport for not having 22L lit with aircraft on visual approach. With 22L dark, 22R lit and lights on the taxiway the lit runway looks like 22L and the taxiway looks an awful lot like 22R to a tired pilot.
@@hagamapama Come on you gotta give SFO more credit than that. The lights on 22R and the taxiway were a different color. Hence why every other plane had no issue landing correctly on 22R. The fault here is on Transport Canada for allowing a pilot to fly with no sleep for the past 19 (!!) hours.
Thankfully you can no longer use the visual approach at SFO now when one of the runways is down.
@@hagamapama This was entirely on the airport. Not picking up on AC759's observation and just denying it is unbelievable.
Well it does actually sound like they realized their mistake before the tower told them though, because when the tower tells them to go around he says "in the go around". It was very close though.
There was just one runway lighted up on that night and the AC pilots didn't knew so they lined up on the taxiway thinking the other lights were the left runway.
Lol Lol That makes a lot of sense. Is that normal to turn off the lights on an inactive runway? Seems like it could be very confusing to the pilots...
there was a flashing light up X on the landing area of the closed and otherwise unlighted runway, to indicate that it was closed. Maybe the air canada pilots misinterpreted it or missed it somehow?
krubokrobu No, it is not normal and nobody said it to the pilots
The runway did have a flashing light indicating that it was closed. It was the normal lights that were turned off during maintenance, but it's not like the runway was invisible. The Air Canada pilots just fucked up and thought the taxiway was one of the runways (thankfully they were noticed before disaster struck, and fixed their error).
Lol Lol The pilots would have known about it through NOTAM and the ATIS.
When You Play Too Much FSX Steam Edition
Flo Agustine
AC: ACA759, cleared to butter the bread on taxiway Charlie.
TWR: A759, negative, all realism effects are turned on, go around.
AC: realism effects turned on, going around, A759.
United: What a noob...
Flo Agustine Sounds like a personal problem.
Augschburgball blog it
The fact that people here are referencing airforceproud here makes me happy. And yes, before you ask, this is heading straight to the blog.
i Firekirby blog it
well... THANK YOU UAL1!
bepowerification first good thing united has done in a while
Even though they're a terrible company, United have pretty good pilots.
go look up United Flight 811 - one of the greatest feats of flying in history
Daniel Lo Nigro, any US Carrier does compared to those Canucks....
LOL well @asterianBlue, you do make a pretty convincing argument...except for the fact that logic dictates that if you have a shit load more commercial airlines, then you're gonna have more fuck ups. #JS
-AirCanada, vacate runway as soon as possible after landing
-Roger Sir, actually i got an idea...
Lmao
Then call the FAA
Smh
UAL1 seemed so chill all things considered, he was talking with a tone of mild disappointment
"Not *another* pilot trying to land on the taxiway. Why do they always do this when I'm on the taxiway?"
Permission to buzz the United???
Negative Ghost Rider, the pattern is full.
Cleared as requested, boosman dude!
Premiere League Poker ~ HIGHWAY TO THE DANGERZONE ~
+Ifly 777 more like taxiway to the dangerzone
Blog it....!!
That United pilot sounded ready to 'reaccomodate' that Air Canada pilot.
I see what you did there
This UAL Captain seems to be one of the coolest guys on earth. Normal pulse after that Harrison-Ford-approach.
Harrison Ford is a pilot for Air Canada now.
He WAS the pilot on that flight.
@@peachworks_en ?????
with an ugly ass accent
Apparently, 28L was closed, and therefor dark. AC was heading for the one on the right. It just happened to be Charlie. Good grief.
This looks and sounds like everything was pretty much under control. A "sh*t happens, but we deal with it" incidence. Former USAF ATC here.
It's scary when you realize that this almost certainly would've put Tenerife to shame, and it probably would've happened had the flight crews on the ground not said anything. Hats off to them!
Indeed.
The forgotten thing here is: another aircrew can issue a go-around order. What if the UA crew had said: 28 Right, go around, you’re lined up with the taxiway and not the runway. Remember, AC759 had challenged the instructions before.
@@AEMoreira81 Challenged but then continued to land with "lights on the runway"!
What were the weather conditions at the time? Was visibility degraded?
The L runway was turned off so he thought that the R was the L runway and that taxiway Charlie was the R runway.
@@jeremybarun that can't be true. taxiway and runway lightings are different
@@maksatsagidullayev4426 The planes on the taxiway didn't have their taxi lights on bright, and the construction vehicles' lights made it look like it was a runway. The FAA concluded in a simulation that the taxiway DID look like a runway during the night operation. And the plane that landed before Air Canada also thought it was a runway.
@@Bombadie that makes sense. Thank you, sir!
@ Are you just going to disregard the NTSB reports? The Facts that were presented by them?
Pretty impressed with how calm they all sound considering they were less than 20 feet from disaster. Planes should be using ILS to prevent these mistakes where it's available.
20 feet?! Holy lord
@@waynepayne9875 th-cam.com/video/bLEGir9lzBo/w-d-xo.html holy shit
Apparently they forgot to tune into the ILS frequency as a visual approach is the only scenario where they'd have to change their radio frequency manually. And they can't do an ILS approach due to needing to curve over the bridges that was in the approach path.
@@waynepayne9875Actually 10 to 15 feet
And UA1 is loaded full up with fuel for an 8,400-mile flight to Singapore. That could have been a real disaster. Given the flight total, I have to imagine that they have 2 complete crews for that trip (10 flight attendants and 4 pilots). As for a time, this would be around 11 PM, as that is when UA1 goes out for its 16-hour flight.
Adam Moreira .. that UA pilot must be a motorcycle driver on his off time..
Adam Moreira Also PR115, usually full and fuelled for Manila
Jesus Christ, this could be an accident which have a casualties which is double or even triple the one in Tenerife!
Lucky it wasn't foggy out.....
If it was foggy out, they wouldn't have been doing a visual approach, and ILS would have put them definitely off center.
BatteryH1862 But why didn't he have ILS on? Even when doing a visual approach ILS helps you center on the runway.
This was embarrassing more than anything. I highly doubt he would have landed on top of the taxiing airplanes once he got a clearer view of his goof.
Its all about the money. It is in some airlines SOP to choose a Visual over an ILS because it is believed that doing visual saves about 1-5 minutes, all that to save up some fuel. It does not seem a lot, but multiply that to all the Air Canada's fleet, and that's where the saving comes up.
If anyone’s coming back to check in on what happened; From what I learned is that the lights on 28L were turned off that night, unknown to the Air Canada crew, they saw the lights for 28R and thought it must be the 28L. This is why they lined up for the taxiway thinking it is their runway and why they asked if they were cleared to land because they saw airplane lights on what they thought was their runway.
11.56PM, and probable 028L approach lighting off while 028R ON can make confuse to somebody for the first time landed airplane...
Okey but ask yourself what was going on on there PFD in the airplane. An A320 lands on autopilot. What radio signal were they following?
That's no excuse. Pilots should know any airport they are going to land at inside and out, regardless of how many times they've flown there
28L indicates a heading of 280 not 028
Om Yay
Good point. This might have been his first time.
Wow. Hadn't seen the NTSB's release of the security camera footage but something stood out to me that could have been part of what spurred the confusion.
The beacons on the aircraft holding on the taxiway were synced in progression, somehow. 1 - 2 - 3, blip blip blip. Would have been a series of beacons proceeding back down the taxiway in almost perfect timing. It broke up as the A320 got very close, but during what would have been the initial descent and confusion, you have those accidentally timed beacons.
Lol this guys asking questions on short final, when in doubt go around, don't wait for tower to tell you
Riley Johnson - Recent reports state the Air Canada pilot did start a go around 2.5 seconds before the Tower told him to do that In addition, the PAL Airbus 340 flashed its landing lights to warn off Air Canada.
It's nice that they're not completely helpless aside from comm. I guess it doesn't happen often that a plane has to flash their lights on the ground or in general.
I'm wondering whether they were on the same frequency, whether Air Canada heard the UA pilot complain. 2.5 seconds would indicate he heard that and then reacted immediately.
they are all on the same frequency at this point.
Yes they heard the pilot complain and also porbably saw the landing lights on the other airplane and aborted the landing 6-10 seconds before AC instructed them to go around. These Vasaviation Simulations are often inaccurate in representing a correct chronology of events (which is especially in this case extremely important) thus giving false impressions.
i think he was ready
Lucky that UAL pilot was looking out his window. This is shockingly close.
Was it me, or did these Air Canada pilots sound REALLY tired? It's a long flight from Toronto to San Fran, so maybe pilot fatigue was a cause/factor?
TEHEPICBROS lol it just you. yyz-sfo is about 5 hours, not very long at all.
the only possibility woukd be that crew did not have minimum rest, or this was not their headstart leg on that pairing.
TEHEPICBROS They have 2 pilots on board, and if the flight wasn't too turbulent autopilot would have flown them the whole way.
AP would have made sure they weren't too tired for a landing.
TEHEPICBROS No, the sound of their voices, indicates they now know they are in deep shit!
Yes definitely the cause here, as well as being unfamiliar with the airport
Fernando Vilches a pilot still has to stay awake, unless it's a long haul, in which they swap mid flight. Not sure if 5 hours counts as a medium haul or a long haul however
I saw a documentary about this one. It was maintanance on the other runway and thus the lights were turned off. Pilots expected to see 2 runways and that is why they mistaken the taxi with a runway.
Thank you for explaining
In fairness to the pilot he did state that he could see lights on the runway and asked if it was clear. As there were problems with landing lights that night it would have been prudent to call a go around at that point. ATC chose to ignore this information. Not wise.Lucky the pilot on the ground spoke up or.....
Agreed. As soon as the pilot mentioned seeing something on the runway on which he's supposed to land, that should have triggered an immediate go-around call from ATC.
That was featured on BBC news and probably just about everywhere else, will be interesting to hear the outcome of that investigation.
probably a slap on the wrist. No damage caused just a confusion
For anyone wondering how this could have happened, 28 left was closed (for maintenance if memory serves) and the lights turned off as it wasn't to be used. Thus, Air Canada heard an instruction to go to the right runway, and with the lights off on 28L, 28R now looked like 28L and the taxiway as 28R
Doesn't ATC have the capability to see if a plane isn't lined up with the right runway on the approach? AC759 actually questioned the instruction when he saw lights on the runway ahead, but ATC confirmed without even checking 759's position.
@@ChuddleBuggy Looks like ATC checked for other lights on the runway and couldn't imagine Air Canada wasn't even lined up.
"He's on the taxiway"
The difference between crash of the century 2.0 and a simple runway misalignment.
i like how calm and collected everyone one when they were just seconds from the worst aviation disaster or all time
“Looks like you were lined up for Charlie [taxiway] there” 😂😂
"I'm going to have a number for you to copy, let me know when you're ready"
And the Air Canada pilot should have said I have the number and right now I'm asking them why the fuck you didn't have any runway lights on on either of the runways.
@Julian Moses the lighs on 28L were off, this is why the air canada was misslead into thinking that 28R is the 28L and charlie 28R.
@Julian Moses He said that the lights are not functional on both runway. You said that they were on 28R, that is pointless regards the objection that celticlofts rise. Then i proceed to explain to you why it was important that the lights was turn on on both runway (according to NTSB). Hope it clarify why i said that.
Almost broke the world record right there.
this must be the most important chill "where is this guy going" ever
The UAL pilot is exceptionally calm for someone who almost died.
After Air Canada landed and called ground:
"Hi, I'm the schmuck who almost landed on the taxiway"
🤣🤣😂😂🤣😆😆
"Oh Mr. Ford again... We didn't know you fly Air Canada now... Well, you know the drill..."
The news is saying Air Canada was within 100-200 feet above the taxiway. Minus about 50 feet for the tail of the planes on the ground, they were 50-150 feet within the worst aircraft collision in history.
It would be crazy...
Flight data shows they were 1.7 miles from the threshold and at 450 feet when the go around was commenced. Not nearly as close as the news is saying at all.
John Smith Pilot could have been more blind = Could have been more worse
Now if anyone here was a pilot they would include ASL or AGL, because both estimates could be correct
Edit: SFO is 13' ASL so ignore my comment
Michael Pearson: false information.
From the NTSB report "ACA759 descended below 100 ft above the ground, and the flight crew advanced the thrust levers to initiate a go-around about the time it overflew the first airplane on the taxiway"
"Where's that guy going" is what saved at least 500 lives that day.
I work at SFO and I saw a small aircraft land on taxis way Charlie by mistake, taxis way Charlie is quite wide and may appear to look like a Rwy from a distant doing a VFR approach
UAL1 Cool as a cucumber while thinking omgholeees**t!!! ..."We're Ready!" to ATC...while thinking, "Let's go before he get's back around!" O-O Thanks VASAviation
I love UAL1's statement at the end, "We're ready." Translation: We know what we're doing unlike the guy flying above us.
daMacroGuy also: we don't want to be here when he comes back for another go"
This pilot must have watched Airforceproud95 before attempting that landing
Lol
We're ready! Dude wasn't wanting to wait for the next Harrison Ford approach.
AC759 reached a minimum altitude of 59 feet (18 m) above ground level, comparable to the 55 ft 10 in (17.02 m) tail height of a Boeing 787-9, two of which were on Taxiway C.
God bless the United pilot, the hero of the piece. His calm (hell it was like someone had just spilled a drink it was so calm 😂) interruption gave everyone else the composure and clarity in those vital seconds to produce a positive outcome. If he had lost the plot it could have been carnage. I don't know how the hell a tower doesn't know where it's aircraft are though, both from the tower and on radar?!
Behind it, the PR A343 had turned on its headlights to alert AC759.
And this boys and girls is why airlines need to get RAAS installed into their aircraft. Had the aircraft on the ground been further down the taxiway and not immediately at the threshold, this might have ended very *very* badly.
totoritko RAAS only works on the ground. Would have done nothing to prevent this.
Nick Cockayne *Technically* you are correct, RAAS doesn't do taxiway landing annunciations. The official product name from Honeywell is SmartLanding. However few people know it by that name and still call it "RAAS", since it's basically an evolution of the original RAAS software.
Air Canada pilot is definitely sleepy.
he woke up real fast though lol
Kazım Ayrancıoğlu or he's still depressed about the Stanley Cup not being in Canada for the 17 straight year
Yeah he be like "cle-da-la 28R Air Canada (whatever number). And then all of a sudden he's wide awake and articulating nicely.
Yeah, looks like the pilot has a tiny sleep deprivation.
It was in their window of circadian low
"Where is this guy going" XD
Guys, I kind of think the pilots of AC realized they drifted off course and started the go-around after the tower said "There's no one on the runway but you."
Pilots see lights, ATC says it's clear: Cross-check failed.
When the tower instructed the go-around, the pilot replied "IN the go-around now." I don't have enough "credible" information yet to know how severe it really was.
TonyP0927 Read this NTSB report and watch the airport surveillance clip. It was very close indeed. ACA missed the PAL A340 (2nd aircraft in line) by an estimated 10 feet or less.
www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/DCA17IA148.aspx
th-cam.com/video/oF7FR7TjnME/w-d-xo.html
@@nevillec5252 Holy cow, that video really shows how close that was to horror
Neville C525 holy fk that video
It is pretty unusual for departing flights to use that taxiway. I've flown out of SFO 100's of times and have never been on that taxiway leaving on the 28s. They nearly always use the taxiway along 28L.
GrasponReality 28L seemed to be closed so apperently they could not use the taxiway crossings at the beginning of RWY's 28L/R.
Maybe that is the reason why
Actually they use it quite a bit for heavies that are departing from the north side of the international terminal / UAL and using 28R. They cross them down field in front of the terminals and have them taxi up and around. Also heavy cargo uses that way to 28R as well.
NTSB report states that 28L was closed for construction, and had a 20 Foot X Marker on the end of the runway to indicate the runway was closed.
On this night though, SFO was single runway operation.
YIKES!
From the report:
"ACA759 descended below 100 ft above the ground, and the flight crew advanced the thrust levers to initiate a go-around about the time it overflew the first airplane on the taxiway."
So the A320 was in landing attitude, and at *below 100 ft* altitude, and only initiated the go-around while above the first airplane on the runway.
This first plane being a 787, it's tail would be 55feet 6 inches from the ground. That leaves a clearance of **AT MOST** 44 feet 6 inches between the planes!!!
(insert another 183 exclamation marks here.......)
Holy crap!! you need to make a full length investigative video about this incident. This was few seconds away from what could have been the worst aviation disaster in history. what the hell happened there?
How can an A320 lineup for a taxiway with 5 jets sitting with full lights on? and kudos for united pilot for keeping his eys out and a prompt response.
Tower is see a tall building which looks like a silo with windows in it am I cleared to land?
ATC : "Air Canada, looks like you were lined up for CHARLIE there"
No one : " Yeah, we fucked up, give me the number"
"We're ready!" lol, can hear from his voice that he just witnessed something that doesn't happen every day
A mistake was made - by someone. It's only because everyone involved was a thorough professional that the mistake was identified and rectified in a calm orderly manner. Air Canada crew spoke up when something looked wrong, Philippine Airlines flashed lights, United's Captain alerted Tower and Tower responded instantly and calmly and meanwhile the AC pilot had already aborted ("*In* the go-around, Air Canada 759") . Of course the mistake should not have happened but it could not have been handled better.
What strikes me most is the complete lack of hysteria and hyperbole. About the most upset guy was the United pilot and all he did was make an observation to which the Tower responds laconically "Yes I saw". Like why are you making a big deal?
Amazing.
lol made me wonder what crap the philippine airlines crew must deal with at some of their airports, knew how to wake sleeping pilots up with those lights.
Well, their advertising says "No one gets you there like Air Canada" that used to mean just late and without your bags, I guess it also includes within a few feet of your life !
That UAL pilot deserves a medal. Literally just saved hundreds of lives.
That UAL pilot stopped a killstreak of epic proportions.
>1000 people jeez
"The Tenerife airport disaster is the deadliest in aviation history."
Air Canada: "Hold my beer."
I saw this on the aviation Herald. Thanks for uploading.
Thank you for watching, Philipp!
I heard that Ryanair likes to do that to avoid runway fees.
Your amazing, this litterally just happened! Good job, from Québec!
Thank you for watching.
I hate when that happens to me in flight simulators, such a nice approach and then it turns out its not even the runway
Both pilots are very experienced in this incident. It's not some rookie first day on the job.
There are several things working against the pilot when it happened.
They were called in to fly the plane later in the day. This caused many problems:
1. They don't fly this route regularly, and they did not know that this route and late night approach requires a manual setting of their landing instruments. In all other routes this is automatic. This would have given them clues about their alignment to the runway.
2. They were awake for very long time and didn't prepare for the latenight work. You can even hear it in the recording when the first officer talked with the tower.
3. The pre-flight briefing was rushed. Only the captain was aware of a runway closure, and he did not make the connections of lights shutting down.
They are also several things at the airport side:
1. This late night approach requires several turns over the river and bridges, and turn into the airport in a short final approach. This gives the pilot less time to verify and react to runways situations. The final turn is a left turn.
2. Parallel runway 28 Left was closed and lights shutdown for maintainence. As the pilots make a left turn, they will use the left runway as cue to align themselves to the right runway, but since left's lights are off, they assume the right runway is left, and the taxiway is the runway right. There are some additional lights at the end of the runway that should be different, but for the areas that the pilots want to land in (and the tired pilots tunnel vision on), the waiting aircrafts, by sheer coincidence, light up in the same way as the runway lights. There was a previous flight that made the same mistake, but fortunatley their instruments were tuned in, so they noticed. The airport did not remind later flights about it even though it has already happened once.
The pilot made 2 mistakes:
1. They mistake the runway right as runway left, becaue the runway left was closed.
2. They continue to descend after tower mistook their situation and reassured they're clear.
The pilots did 2 things right to avoid this disaster:
1. They called the tower to verify runway is clear when they see some other lights that's not quite right, which likely alarmed the pilots on the ground in taxiway to look up and check. And resulting the famous "Where's this guy going?" and a go-around
2. They were prepared to do a go-around before tower called for it, because they already felt something was not quite right. Those split seconds made a difference in this case.
Improvements were made to airport procedures, airport equipments, and airplane equipments to prevent a "simple" mistake potentially cascading into castatrophic disasters.
1. They will be more Air traffic controls in the tower during night rush hours to give them more man power and awareness. They will also stop using visual approachs if any of the parrallel runways closed . They will also try to keep the lights on and look the same at night even for maintainance.
2. There are now equipment on both the airport and airplane to warn ATC and pilots if they are misaligned.
Good explanation. Blaming the crew is always easy. Did a 12 hr duty 2 days back and in the last landing, I was struggling to get my visual perception in. Fatigue is no joke.
Hey, just found your channel today, and I have to say, thank you for the effort in these videos!
If that plane kept on going and landed on that taxiway, it would be the Airport scene from Godzilla 2015
UAL1 Captain would have had a rather interesting view out his side window... NO THANKS.
That guy was straight pulling a Harrison Ford! :P
doing a Harrison Ford approach, eh?
The Force was with United
@@philmontejano5971 That's not how the force works...!
“Where this guy going”😭 i can’t LOL
That Air Canada was 10-15 feet from the tail of the 2nd aircraft. During landing that distance can become 0 ft in less than a second. Imagine if the Go Around was 1 second late.
UAL1: "We're ready!" The sound of that pilots voice.
more like "get us the fuck out of here"
Is it right the Tower answer "that's ok to land" after the pilot advise of lights on the landing runway? I´m not a pilot so don´t take me wrong but in my humble opinion the normal procedures should be: When a pilot warns TWR because of lights on the runway, the Tower should have answered immediately : "Go around !" and not answer like they did. "You may proceed because there are no lights in the runway". Because if the pilot was seeing lights on the runway, that only means that something was going VERY VERY WRONG and TWR should not allow the landing !!
That's why TWR said, "there is NO ONE on 28R but you" (caps for added emphasis). The "no one" part implies that there are no lights on the runway, and by then, ACA759 likely knew something was up.
@@wildgurgs3614 No, the "no one" indicates he has the runway to himself. If he sees aircraft on the "runway" after being told there is no one using the runway but himself, it's just another one of multiple indicators that what he's lined up with is not the runway he should be landing on.
How are you supposed to land on something you can’t see smh
Yes runways have lights and bigger runways have lots and lots of lights so you can see everything you need to
@@bigblue207 The approach lights leading up to both runways were not in service and not on. 28L did not have its lights on that night either. This error is perfectly understandable
Canonical I didn’t know that was the case. Was there a NOTAM or something, or how did you know? If that’s the case then how were they supposed to have the runway in sight by the decision altitude or visual descent point? I’m not sure what instrument approach this is but assuming it’s ILS it would indicate lateral deflection. My original comment was snarkier than I meant it to be but I was trying to make the point that runways have lights (NEED lights) so the pilot can land, so just seeing lights where you’re trying to land isn’t necessarily a sign something is wrong
@0:41 Air Canada pilot acknowledges the tower's assurance that there's no one on the runway but them, but you can hear considerable doubt in his voice. He's not convinced at all
Exactly! shit trust your gut instinct!
Damn if this was in a heavy fog scenario
ILS wouldn't have lined up, so i think this happened mostly cuz it was a visual approach.
This was at night, look at Erich Hartmanns comment, he goes into deeper detail.
@@Hyperus I'm aware of that sir, that is why I emphasized "if".
How humiliating, a Continental DC.-9 pulled the same trick at Newark. I love the "Where does that guy think he's going?"
Since the visual flight approach lights are *VERY* different for a main runway, or a taxiway, I can only conclude that, because 28L was dark, the pilots minds were ' seeing what they normally expected to see '. They mistook the taxiway for 28R. But this still was an inexcusable thing for them to do.
Didn't the beacon lights of the aircraft waiting in queu being in sync made it look like a runway or something too?
I don’t want to judge this, but I wonder how could mistake runway with taxiway!?
I can understand if this was a late night flight and tired eyes but there are 2 pilots to avoid this and many other kind of problems and nobody noticed? And the runway lights, PAPI lights and ALSF lights?
Daniel Guzmán They should have turned on ILS. that would have guided them (or just let the autopilot handle it) to the center of the runway.
i know it was a visual approach, but turn on the ILS anyway.
Fernando Vilches maybe ILS was inoperative, we should read latest NOTAMS to confirm this, anyway, it’s good we are not talking about a tragedy
Notams said that the runway lights were inoperative. And the choice of doing a Visual instead of an ILS is I believe in Air Canada's SOP
bigdog1 likely pilots typically work long shifts with little time to sleep in between the pilot in air canada sounds clearly fatigued and tired
Is that true? I see no recent NOTAMs about 28R. Maybe i just missed it?