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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