The Worst Plane Crash Avoided by a Split Second

Bright Side

In 2017, Air Canada Flight 759 came terrifyingly close to causing one of the worst aviation disasters ever at San Francisco International Airport. The plane was supposed to land on a clear runway but instead started descending onto a taxiway where four fully loaded planes were waiting to take off. The pilots mistook the taxiway for the runway in the dark, coming within 14 feet of hitting another plane. A quick-thinking air traffic controller yelled for the Air Canada pilots to abort their landing at the last second. The plane pulled up just in time, narrowly avoiding a catastrophic pile-up that could’ve affected hundreds of lives. Experts later said it was sheer luck and sharp reactions that prevented tragedy that night.

Transcript

00:00This could have been one of the biggest disasters in aviation history.

00:04It was close to midnight at San Francisco International Airport

00:08when Air Canada Flight 759 approached for landing.

00:12The pilots were almost done for that day and thought they'd land as usual,

00:16but they were unaware that the airport looked different that night.

00:20Runway 28 right was open, while runway 28 left, usually parallel,

00:25was closed for maintenance, with its lights turned off.

00:29Despite having landed here before, the pilots made a critical error.

00:33Expecting to see two parallel runways,

00:36they mistook the center runway for the darkened 28 left

00:39and assumed the taxiway on the right was 28 right.

00:43What the crew didn't realize was that the taxiway wasn't empty.

00:47Four planes were lined up there, waiting for takeoff,

00:51with more than a thousand passengers in total.

00:53And their plane was headed straight toward them.

00:56There was a notice to airmen, which listed important details for flights,

01:00including this critical information.

01:03But these notices are long and dense, often stretching several pages,

01:07and the closure detail had been missed by the Air Canada crew.

01:11That night, the pilots were conducting a visual approach,

01:14relying on what they could see to align with the runway.

01:17This is normal in good weather, but is much harder at night.

01:21The crew had flown from Toronto and were tired after a long day.

01:26Their internal clocks were already past 3 a.m.,

01:28and Canadian rules regarding pilot rest were less strict than those in the U.S.

01:33The captain had been working for nearly 19 hours without proper rest.

01:38As the plane got closer to danger,

01:41no one in the cockpit noticed they were on the wrong path.

01:45Planes approaching San Francisco often come in at a slight angle to reduce noise over the bay.

01:51It's normal for them to appear slightly off to air traffic controllers.

01:55But this added to the confusion,

01:57and the Air Canada crew kept heading toward the taxiway.

02:01When the pilots finally realized that something was off,

02:04they radioed the control tower to confirm their landing clearance.

02:08The controller, who was managing both air traffic and ground operations due to the late hour,

02:14took several seconds to respond.

02:16He cleared them to land,

02:18unaware that the plane was lined up for the wrong path.

02:21Meanwhile, the crew of one of the planes on the runway

02:24quickly radioed the tower,

02:26alerting them to the imminent danger.

02:28The tower immediately instructed the Air Canada crew to stop and go around for another attempt.

02:33The Air Canada pilots pulled up just in time,

02:37missing the parked planes by just a couple feet.

02:40The pilots, still shaken from the near miss,

02:43saved hundreds of lives.

02:45After the incident, a full investigation was conducted.

02:49Now there are new safety measures.

02:51But there are still concerns about whether the lessons learned are enough.

02:56Recent years have seen an alarming rise in such awful close calls.

03:00Qantas Flight 32,

03:03a scheduled flight from London to Sydney via Singapore,

03:06encountered a critical emergency on November 4, 2010.

03:10Just minutes after taking off from Singapore's Shangi Airport,

03:14as an Airbus A380 was flying over the Riau Islands in Indonesia,

03:19it encountered a serious problem.

03:21One of its four engines underwent an uncontained failure.

03:24For the next two hours, the crew faced a tense and difficult situation

03:29as they tried to figure out how badly the plane was damaged.

03:33The accident happened at 10.01 a.m. Singapore time.

03:37When the engine went off, pieces of it flew into the wing,

03:41damaging important systems.

03:43The fuel system was hit, causing leaks and even starting a fire in one of the fuel tanks.

03:48It also took out one of the plane's hydraulic systems,

03:51which helped control things like the flaps and landing gear.

03:54It disabled the anti-lock brakes, which are crucial for safe landings.

03:59Two of the other engines started to lose power as well,

04:02and the flaps, which helped control the plane's descent and speed, were damaged.

04:06Despite the harm to the aircraft, the crew realized it was still controllable.

04:11They decided to circle near Singapore for about 50 minutes,

04:15while they carefully checked the condition of the aircraft.

04:17The first officer and the supervising captain then used a special landing calculator

04:23to see if they could land safely at Changi,

04:25even though the plane was 50 tons heavier than its maximum landing weight.

04:30At first, the system couldn't give them a landing distance.

04:34But after adjusting for the fact that the runway was dry,

04:37it showed they could land with only 328 feet of runway left to spare.

04:42At 11.45 a.m., the plane landed safely at Changi Airport.

04:48But because it was going about 40 miles per hour faster than usual,

04:52four of its tires blew out when it touched down.

04:56After landing, the crew ran into another problem.

04:59They couldn't shut off the number one engine.

05:01Emergency crews had to step in and put out the engine themselves.

05:05The crew had to decide whether to evacuate the plane right away

05:09because fuel was leaking near the overheated brakes, which could have caused a fire.

05:14Captain David Evans later explained that, despite the risk,

05:18it was actually safer to keep everyone on board until things settled down.

05:23The cabin crew stayed on high alert,

05:25ready to evacuate passengers immediately if the situation got worse.

05:29To make things even tougher, the plane was running on battery power,

05:33which meant they could only use one radio to communicate with emergency services.

05:39Luckily, the danger passed,

05:41and everyone was able to leave the plane calmly using a set of stairs.

05:45Everyone on board, 440 passengers and 29 crew members, got out safely.

05:51On the ground in Batam,

05:53some debris from the engine fell on a school, houses, and a car.

05:57But, thankfully, everyone was okay there as well.

06:00Just a few missteps could have made that situation turn out very differently.

06:06But, luckily, the crew handled it like heroes.

06:10Investigators eventually found that the problem started

06:13because a small oil pipe in the engine had been poorly made,

06:17leading to the disaster.

06:18This was the first time an engine failure like this had happened on an A380.

06:23It was, and still is, the world's largest passenger plane at the time.

06:27As a result, Qantas and some other airlines temporarily grounded

06:32all of its A380 planes to ensure they were safe.

06:36Another similar incident happened with Northwest Airlines Flight 85 in 2002.

06:42The plane took off from Detroit Metropolitan Airport at 2.30 p.m. Eastern Time.

06:48There were four pilots on board.

06:50About seven hours into the flight, flying at 35,000 feet,

06:55an unexpected issue struck.

06:57The plane veered sharply, banking to the left.

07:00The pilots initially thought an engine had failed.

07:03The senior captain quickly returned to the cockpit and took manual control.

07:08An emergency was declared, and they decided to divert the flight to Anchorage.

07:12It was hard to communicate, as they were in a zone with weak signals.

07:16Eventually, they connected with another Northwest Airlines flight nearby,

07:21which relayed their emergency call to Alaska.

07:24The situation was so unusual that none of the usual emergency procedures worked.

07:30The flight crew called Northwest Airlines headquarters in Minneapolis for help,

07:34but even they couldn't find a solution.

07:37Thankfully, the pilots worked together to control the plane.

07:41They managed to steer the plane using the ailerons,

07:43and by applying more power to one engine than the other.

07:47This tricky maneuver allowed them to land safely at Anchorage.

07:51After the incident, the NTSB and Boeing investigated once again.

07:56The NTSB investigator described it as a dramatic event

08:00that required careful examination.

08:03They found a crack in the power control module for the rudder,

08:07which had caused part of its metal housing to break.

08:09This break was unusual because it affected the module's outer casing,

08:14not just the inside parts.

08:16The NTSB concluded that the crack led to what's known as a rudder hardover,

08:22where the rudder is pushed to its maximum position and stays there,

08:26causing the sudden dangerous turn.

08:28All of these horrible situations show how fatigue,

08:32miscommunication, and outdated procedures can lead to disasters.

08:35But the sheer number of them in history, especially in U.S. airports,

08:40raises the question of whether enough lessons have truly been learned.

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