Runway incident at SFO
Hi – First Time SLF poster, long timer lurker here. Love this forum.
I was on a United flight (I think it was an A320 from what I remember) from SFO to SNA in November, and I was listening to the cockpit commentary which I always like to do on United. At SFO, usually short haul traffic departs from 1R or 1L, but on this occasion we were taxiing towards 28L/28R which usually accommodate all landing, and long haul takeoff. As we were turning towards 28L, we got a “Cross 28L and line up and hold on 28R” command from the Tower. I was on the right hand side, and I could see a 747 on short final landing. We seemed to be a little slouchy in getting to 28L, and then (I would say 10 to 15 secs after the original Tower command) we got a “Hold Short 28L”. Our pilot immediately responded that she had crossed the threshold of 28L, and the Tower then came back immediately with “Cross 28L and line up and hold on 28R”. We crossed pretty quickly with the 747 looking like it was barreling down on us. Conditions were very clear at the time. At no time did the controller in the tower cancel landing clearance to the 747(usually landing clearance in SFO is given as soon as you go to the Tower on Final regardless of whether there’s activity happening on the runway or planes taking off on 1R or 1L). The 747 landed about 30 to 45 secs later on 28L and we took off on 28R, but a different controller came on to clear us for takeoff.
I have a few questions for pilots and controllers:
1) Where on the spectrum of “Happens every day” to “Very rare” does this fall?
2) Where on the spectrum of “Serious Incident” to “Not even an incident” does this fall?
3) I assume the controller was worried about us not crossing 28L in time, and hence changed her mind to wanting us to hold short. Why then did she not cancel clearance for the 747?
4) Was the fact that the controller immediately changed after the incident just coincidence of just a normal shift change, or would she have been temporarily relieved after an incident like this?
5) Would there be any way to find out if an incident report was filed and/or is that public domain that I could read?
6) Do United pilots and controllers hate that SLF can listen to them?
Thanks!