SAN FRANCISCO _ The National Transportation Safety Board will hold a meeting in September to determine the probable cause of how an Air Canada jetliner nearly landed on a crowded taxiway at San Francisco International Airport in what could have been one of the deadliest aviation disasters ever.
The board will also issue safety recommendations aimed at preventing similar close calls in the future.
The NTSB determined that Air Canada Flight 759, an Airbus A320 was cleared to land on runway 28R at SFO on July 7, 2017, but the airplane instead lined up with parallel taxiway C, which had four fully loaded airplanes awaiting takeoff clearance. Investigators determined the Air Canada flight dropped to about 60 feet above the ground before aborting the landing.
The tail of the Philippine Airlines Airbus A340, which Air Canada flew over, stands at 55 feet, 6 inches, which means the planes could have come as close as 5 feet to each other. In the NTSB performance study, the NTSB estimated the distance between the two planes at about 13.5 feet.
The hearing will be Sept. 25 in the NTSB board room in Washington, D.C.
