Air Canada A321 photo by Brian Bukowski, CC BY-SA 2.0
Air Canada flight 759 had a near miss at SFO last week, when it inadvertently lined up to land on a taxiway instead of on the runway. FlightAware.com showed the Air Canada Airbus 320 dropping to as low as 175 feet before initiating a go-around and overflying four fully loaded airliners on Taxiway C. This is our lead story in this week's Aviation News Talk podcast.
At the time of the incident, shortly before midnight, Runway 28L was closed with its runway lights turned off. It’s possible the lack of light on 28L shifted the Air Canada pilot’s orientation to the right, leading him to believe that Taxiway C was actually runway 28R.
Given that the Air Canada jet got as low as 175 feet, I estimate that he was approximately 14 seconds from touching down on the airliners lined up on the taxiway. On a normal 3 degree glide slope, an aircraft descends 320 feet for every nautical mile flown. So at 175 feet, and aircraft would be 0.55 nautical miles from the touchdown zone. The typical landing speed for an A320 is around 130 kts to 140 kts. At 140 knots, an aircraft covers 2.33 miles per minute, so it could travel 0.55 nautical miles in a little over 14 seconds. Of course if you figure a typical airliner is perhaps 40 feet high....then it would have been about 11 seconds to impact.
Also, I believe, and will confirm shortly, that some airlines require that electronic guidance to the runway (e.g. an ILS) be displayed even when flying a visual approach. Referring to the ILS signal to 28R would have almost certainly pointed out the problem long before the Air Canada pilot inadvertently lined up with the taxiway at SFO.
In this week's Aviation News Talk podcast, we talk about the key reason this near-disaster was narrowly averted, and how that applies to pilots flying general aviation aircraft. We also talk about the poorly understood squelch controls on radios and intercoms and how to set them properly. Although both devices have squelch circuits, they operate slightly differently and are set differently.
Plus we answer some listener questions. For example, Should you Dive and Drive on a non-precision instrument approach? If that's how you were taught, and how you still fly, you should listen to the show to learn about the guidance the FAA issued in 2001 to stop flying that way. Also a future CFI talks about the difficulty he's having learning to land from the right seat, and I make suggestions on how to safely how to land from the right seat.
You can find and download this and all of my podcast episodes on Apple iTunes, or listen to it at Aviationnewstalk.com, where you'll also find links in the right column for Android phones and other podcast players.
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