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Air Canada plane almost lands on taxiway in San Francisco

July 10th, 2017  |  Canadian Business

Friday night at the San Francisco airport found an Air Canada plane lined up to land on a taxiway instead of its intended runway. An air traffic controller managed to turn the Air Canada plane around, preventing it from landing on the taxiway and causing serious harm.

“Air Canada flight AC759 from Toronto was cleared to land on runway 28R just before midnight,” the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement regarding the incident. "However, the pilot inadvertently lined up for Taxiway C, which runs parallel to the runway. An air traffic controller sent the Air Canada jet around. The plane made another approach and landed without incident."

Four other planes were on the taxiway when the Air Canada airbus was attempting to land, and the FAA is currently looking into just how close the Air Canada plane got to those on the taxiway. Air Canada released a statement saying that they are also investigating.

Audio of the conversations between the pilots and air traffic control is available from Live ATC and depicts what happened moments before what CEO of Aero Consulting Experts, Ross Aimer, called a “potentially horrific incident”.

"What happened probably came close to the greatest aviation disaster in history," said Aimer, who is also a retired United Airlines Captain. "If you could imagine an Airbus colliding with four passenger aircraft wide bodies, full of fuel and passengers, then you can imagine how horrific this could have been."