5 feet?! Shocking SFO video, data reveal Air Canada plane came perilously close to aircraft on taxiway

By MATTHIAS GAFNI [email protected] Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: May 2, 2018 at 10:50 am UPDATED: May 4, 2018 at 10:49 am

SAN FRANCISCO — Federal aviation investigators released stunning video footage and data Wednesday showing the near-disastrous landing ofan Air Canada flight at San Francisco International Airport came as close as 5 feet from striking a Philippine Airlines jet lined up on a taxiway last July — much closer than previously reported.

In its lengthy report Wednesday on one of the most troubling close calls in SFO’s history — an Air Canada jet almost landing on top of four passenger jets awaiting takeoff — the National Transportation Safety Board found the crew felt fatigued during the flight, that the first officer was twice rejected in his application for promotion, and that another pilot landing at SFO that night complained about too-bright construction lights that made it difficult to find the proper runway.

Aviation experts have said the close call could have led to one of the worst aviation disasters in history with the fully loaded planes carrying upward of 1,000 passengers and crew.

The documents were released a day after the Federal Aviation Administration released its own investigatory findings into other take-off and landing mishaps at SFO, highlighted in a series of reports first detailed by the Bay Area News Group.

The new NTSB report includes never-before-seen SFO surveillance video that shows Air Canada Flight 759, an Airbus A-320, mistakenly aligned with Taxiway C the night of July 7. The black-and-white video shows the Air Canada jet descending perilously close to — and flying directly over — the planes awaiting takeoff before pulling up at the last second. It had been cleared to land on runway 28R, but pilots told the NTSB they got confused because a parallel runway was closed for construction that night.

The new data from NTSB shows the plane dropped to only 60 feet above the ground at its lowest point — much lower than previously thought — as it passed over a Philippine Airlines Airbus A340 waiting to take off on the taxiway. The tail of the Airbus model — the tallest point — is 55 feet, six inches.

When asked to confirm that Air Canada passed within 5 feet of the other jet based on the NTSB chart, a spokesman said they would have to consult the investigators. While the federal agency could not confirm the distance, in its performance study report the NTSB estimated the distance between the two planes at 13.5 feet.

Former United pilot Ross Aimer reviewed the NTSB data and said it appeared the planes got incredibly close.“If the tail of (Air Canada) was directly above the A340’s rudder (which may not be the case) the direct vertical distance would be 5 (feet)!” Aimer wrote in an email.

The NTSB report also presents a much clearer idea of what happened in the cockpit during those final crucial moments on approach and named the pilots involved for the first time.

Air Canada Capt. James Kisses switched off the autopilot once the plane reached the final approach and took over flying. As they neared the airport, he saw lights on the runway and asked his co-pilot Matthew Dampier to verify the runway was clear.

At about 11:55 p.m., radio traffic indicates that Dampier asked the SFO air traffic controllers: “Just want to confirm this is Air Canada 759 we see some lights on the runway there across the runway. Can you confirm we’re cleared to land?”

The tower, believing the plane was lined up for the correct Runway 28R, said the runway was clear, not realizing the plane was actually lined up on the crowded parallel taxiway.

The first officer described how in the moments before radioing the tower for clarification he had been “looking more inside the cockpit than out because” he was focused on preparing the plane for landing, according to the NTSB report.

When Dampier looked up from his chart as the captain asked him to query the tower, he looked outside and saidit “didn’t look right” and he had a “bad feeling in his stomach,” according to the report.

“Although he was not certain what was incorrect, he was unable to process what he was seeing. He subsequently commanded the go around to the captain by saying ‘go around go around,’ ” according to the report. Kisses told investigators “things were not adding up” and that it “did not look good,” and as he got even closer it “still felt odd” and he aborted the landing.

The pilot and co-pilot had never flown together before that night. Dampier, 42, said they both began to feel tired while still an hour away from SFO. While neither man had a previous incident or accident, Dampier had two “unsatisfactory” attempts to become a captain.

“According to the simulator instructors and checkairmen that conducted the incident first officer’s upgrade attempt, the reason for the unsatisfactory upgrade was the first officer’s lack of situational awareness, failure to correctly identify a mandatory altitude on an arrival, non-precision approaches, and a lack of performance to the Transport Canada required performance standards,” according to the report.

Some instructors described Dampier as “nervous” and a “weak candidate.”

Air Canada has not said if either man was disciplined. The 56-year-old captain has 20,000 flying hours, and the first officer has 10,000 flying hours. Both men live in Toronto, meaning their body clock was at 3 a.m. during the landing.

Dampier told investigators it was not until they left the plane that night — after a second, successful landing — that they remembered about the runway closure at SFO.

Dampier told investigators as they taxied to the gate at SFO that night he realized the result “could have been bad.”

The NTSB also interviewed the flight crews who got buzzed by the Air Canada plane as they sat on the taxiway. Many pointed to the quick thinking of United Airlines Flight 1 Capt. Keith Freeberg, who had been first in line at the end of Taxiway C waiting to take off. He saw the Air Canada plane headed toward them and radioed: “Where’s that guy going, he’s on the taxiway!”

Steve Shoquist, a relief first officer on United 863, which was third in line on the taxiway, said the plane turned on all its lights in a last ditch effort to warn the Air Canada plane it was about to land on them.

“Air Canada went around, and a huge disaster that would have many fatalities, including myself was avoided,” Shoquist told investigators.

Another pilot told investigators that the air traffic controller that night was overburdened with work directing air, ground and other radio traffic. The FAA has since ordered two controllers to be in the tower at SFO at all times during the night rush hour. At the time of the landing, one controller was in the tower, and the second was on break.

The air traffic controller that night, Brian Delucchi, also was interviewed by the NTSB and recalled talking to the “shaken” Air Canada pilot shortly after the incident.

“He (said the pilot) had not realized how close the aircraft had gotten to each other … and (he) did not want to ‘freak the guy out since he seemed shaken,’ ” according to the report.

The Air Canada pilots were not the only ones confused by runway configuration that night, when Runway 28L was closed for construction. Another airline’s flight crew that landed on Runway 28R four minutes before the Air Canada flight reported to investigators the “construction lights were so bright we could not determine the location of the inboard runway, 28L,” according to the report.

That crew said they too questioned whether they were properly lined up for Runway 28R but checked with their instruments to confirm the right path.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/05/...four-aircraft/