Air Canada near miss in San Francisco ‘could have killed over 1,000 people,' report finds

Sophie Williams15 October 2018

A near miss involving an Air Canada jet at San Francisco airport could have killed “over 1,000 people”, according to a report.

National Transportation Safety Board vice chairman Bruce Landsberg said: “Only a few feet of separation prevented this from possibly becoming the worst aviation accident in history.”

Shocking video footage from the incident shows the plane coming in to land passing over at least four planes before making a go-around.

The photo shows the plane approaching the runway 
National Transportation Safety Board

According to the report by NTSB, other pilots turned on their lights to warn the Air Canada jet.

Another board member, Earl Weener said the plane came within feet of hitting another aircraft and colliding with several others.

He added: “Over 1,000 people were at imminent risk of serious injury or death.”

On Thursday, the NTSB issued a final report on the incident.

The incident occurred at San Francisco Airport
AP

It found that the pilots were slow to report the incident to superiors. By the time they did, the plane was already on another flight and the cockpit voice recording of the incident had been recorded over.

The pilot of the Air Canada flight said that he did not report the incident as he was “very tired” and it was late. He reported the incident the following day.

It also determined that the incident was caused by the pilots of the jet being confused as one of the two parallel runways had closed that night.

The NTSB also criticised the Federal Aviation Administration as only one air traffic controller was on duty at the time of the incident.

A spokesperson for Air Canada said: “It is noteworthy that the NTSSB’s recommendations were not directed at Air Canada specifically and address many areas for improvement.”

Air Canada has given pilots specific training to familiarise pilots with San Francisco airport and has emphasised proper procedures for landing approaches.

Additional reporting by AP.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in