A flight crew’s lack of awareness was to blame for an incident in which they lined up their Air Canada Airbus A320 for landing on an occupied taxiway at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and descended to about 60 ft above the ground before beginning a go-around, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says.
The NTSB determined during a meeting Tuesday that the crew’s lack of awareness was the probable cause of the July 7, 2017, incident in which no one was injured and the A320 was not damaged.
The crew had been cleared to land on Runway 28R but instead lined up with parallel Taxiway C, where four air carrier airplanes were awaiting takeoff clearances. The A320 overflew the first two of those airplanes, reaching a minimum altitude of about 60 ft before beginning to climb, the NTSB said.
The crew’s misidentification of the taxiway resulted from their lack of awareness that Runway 28L was…
