Airbus Updates No.1632

Incident: Canada A320 at San Francisco on Jul 7th 2017, lined up with taxiway for landing

By Simon Hradecky, created Tuesday, Jul 11th 2017 13:32Z, last updated Tuesday, Jul 11th 2017 20:23Z An Air Canada Airbus A320-200, registration C-FKCK performing flight AC-759 from Toronto,ON (Canada) to San Francisco,CA (USA) with 140 people on board, was on final approach to runway 28R in night conditions being cleared to land, when a short time after reading back the landing clearance the crew queried tower to confirm they were cleared to land advising they were seeing lights on the runway, tower advised the runway was clear and they were cleared to land indeed. Another voice chimed in calling they were lined up with the taxiway, tower immediately instructed AC-759 to go around as result commenting it looked like they were lined up for taxiway C. The aircraft went around from about 400 feet MSL. Other flight crew taxiing their aircraft on taxiway C commented the A320 was flying straight over them. The A320 positioned for another approach and landed safely about 15 minutes later. The FAA is investigating the occurrence rated a serious incident. There were four aircraft on taxiway C, which runs parallel to runway 28R to the right of the runway. On Jul 11th 2017 the Canadian TSB reported the crew of C-FKCK asked ATC to confirm landing clearance as they were seeing lights when the aircraft was 0.6nm before the runway threshold. The controller was coordinating with another facility when a flight crew of another airliner taxiing on taxiway C queried ATC where AC-759 was going and stated it appeared the aircraft was lined up with taxiway C. AC-759 had already overflown taxiway C by about 0.25nm when ATC instructed the aircraft to go around. 4 aircraft were on taxiway C at the time of the occurrence. It is estimated that AC-759 overflew the first two aircraft by 100 feet, the third by about 200 feet and the last by 300 feet. The closest lateral proximity between AC-759 and one of the aircraft on taxiway C was 29 feet. The NTSB is investigating the occurrence.