Air Canada Flight Almost Landed On A Crowded Taxiway In SFO: Worst Airline Landing Mistakes

An Air Canada flight nearly landed on a busy taxiway, crowded with aircraft, during its landing at San Francisco International Airport, reports said Tuesday.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident which occurred Friday night and involved flight AC759 from Toronto. FAA said in a statement the Airbus A320 was cleared for landing on runway 28R, however, the pilot "inadvertently" lined up for Taxiway C that runs parallel to the runway that the aircraft was supposed to land on. Four other aircraft were lined up on the taxiway at the time.

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FAA described the July 7 incident as "very rare." The plane landed safely after an air controller became aware of it, and ordered the pilot to turn back around and make another approach to the runway. Air Canada has also been investigating the incident, Peter Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for the airlines, told CBC News.

"Air Canada flight AC759 from Toronto was preparing to land at San Francisco airport Friday night when the aircraft initiated a go-around," Fitzpatrick said.

"The aircraft landed normally without incident. We are still investigating the circumstances and therefore have no additional information to offer."

An audio recording of the conversation between air traffic controllers and pilots at the airport emerged, where the pilot is believed to be heard confirming the landing site with the control tower.

"Just want to confirm, this is Air Canada AC759 we see some lights on the runway there. Confirming good to land?" the pilot said.

"Air Canada AC759 confirmed cleared to land runway 28 right," the control tower responded. "There is no one on 28-Right but you."

Shortly after the control tower’s response, an unidentified voice can be heard asking: "Where is this guy going? He's on the taxiway."

The air traffic controller then ordered the pilot to turn back around. "Air Canada AC759, it looks like you were lined up for Charlie there," the controller said, an apparent reference to Taxiway C.

A United Airlines pilot on the taxiway messaged to air traffic control after the plane had turned back: "Air Canada flew directly over us."

"Yeah, I saw that guys," the control tower said, CNN reported.

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This is not the first such incident of an airline miss when aircraft landed on taxiway instead of their designated runways. In December 2015, an Alaska Airlines flight landed on a taxiway at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. No one was hurt; however, it could have caused a disaster if another plane was parked on the taxiway.

The flight was asked to land on a runway when the pilot mistakenly landed on a taxiway. Taxiways do not look very different from runways if you are not a seasoned pilot. Safety experts have tried educating pilots for years to avoid such mistakes.

"This is not a new problem at Sea-Tac. There have been cases going back to the 1990s of aircraft inadvertently landing on what's called 'taxiway tango,'" aviation safety expert Todd Curtis had told USA Today after the incident.

In March, veteran actor Harrison Ford landed his single-engine Aviat Husky plane on the runway in Southern California instead on a parallel runway, when another American Airlines flight was supposed to take off. Ford told the air traffic controller he was distracted by another airliner "which was in movement," as well as by "big turbulence" from a landing plane.

There were several reports of aircraft landing on wrong airports between 2012 and 2014. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) suggested air traffic control procedures should be modified to avoid such mishaps, which can lead to catastrophic results, according to Reuters. NTSB said five aircraft including a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 and an Atlas Air Boeing 747 cargo plane landed on wrong airports between July 2012 and November 2014.