Earlier in July, passengers aboard an Air Canada aircraft had a narrow escape when the Flight took an incorrect lane to land. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board on August 2 updated the status of its investigation.

The incident in question took place on July 7 night at San Francisco International Airport when Flight 759 missed the taxiway by a whisker. The aircraft was given the go-ahead to land; however, the pilots mistook the taxiway for the runway and began the descent. The runway where the flight was supposed to land was right next to the taxiway.

There were at least four planes lined up when the Air Canada flight was about to land. The flight was just 59 feet above the ground when the pilots in the Air Canada aircraft thought that something did not seem right and took off from their position.

What did the pilots say?

In a post-incident interview both the pilots who were responsible for the Air Canada flight stated that they did not see any other planes in the taxiway. They thought that the lit runway was where they had to land. This misinformation could have ended up being the biggest disaster in the aviation industry, if the pilots would have decided to land.

During investigation no on-board recordings of the pilots could be found as it was wiped off for the next flight.

Even thought the pilots on-board Flight 759 did not see any flights on the taxiway, there were four fully-loaded aircrafts waiting on the runway for take off. All four were loaded with passengers and fully-filled with fuel. No one can imagine the sort of disaster that could have enfolded in front of everyone’s eyes, resulting in major casualties.

The investigators said that the Air Canada flight did not even show up on the radar that helps avoid any runway collisions. According to reports, it was coming from Toronto and the incident took place just before midnight.

The number of planes on taxiway

The pilots who were on-board the other four plans on the runway had their heart in their mouth due to the close escape they just experienced.

United Airlines was just 56 feet away from the Air Canada aircraft and the Philippines Airlines flight was 52 feet away from it.

Both the pilots who were flying the Air Canada flight were very well experienced. The captain had an experience of at least 20,000 hours of flying time and the co-pilot had at least 10,000 hours. Investigations are on to determine what went wrong.