[ANALYSIS] Air Canada A320 lands AFTER INSTRUCTED TO GO AROUND!

[VASAviation]

*EDIT* It was later demonstrated that they had changed to Ground frequency after cleared to land.
*Thanks for all the support and feedback on the previous analysis*
Do you find any improvement with the audio quality and volume? Hoping to know your opinions here :)

[dennisnijhuis]

Why not flasing red LED lights on the side of the runway to alert the incoming plane to go around?

[dayo_the_keyboardist]

Such an excellent video thanks! Is this a new style of you explaining things?

[rigby.otherw]

Why not call United to go around and make the other planes to cross the runway? It would be easier. Or not?

[aakksshhaayy]

Okay good review... so what happened afterwards in ensuing investigation? Or nothing?

[ilrompiscatole]

4:39 VASAviation gets blocked by ATC 😄

[marksumner]

You don’t tune the second radio to 121.5, or at least you don’t on my jet. The radios have a built in ‘guard radio’ and you select TR or TR+G.
When TR+G is selected you can hear guard as well as the frequency you have selected.
It can get annoying though and is a distraction on final so is often switched to plain TR.

To change frequency you dial it in the standby window and then press a button to flip it with the active frequency. I’m guessing they dialed in ground to have it ready to flip when requested but accidentally pressed the button.

The red light is well known for being useless. A controller friend once told me he’d never had anyone notice it when he’d used it in 15 years of working the tower.

[RaysDad]

I agree that the instruction "continue approach" is better than "clear to land" if there is still traffic on the runway. Also, why change to ground frequency before landing?

[rrknl]

I don't know about anyone else but when I land a plane at a controlled airport, I set the ground frequency in the second radio shortly after I'm handed off to the tower.

I also keep the tower frequency in the first radio until after I have established communications with ground.

Just because you're cleared to land 5 miles out doesn't mean you're still cleared all the way in.

[fhuber]

I hope they pulled the black box and checked the cockpit voice recording.

[PilotFun]

Another great one. Thank you! It is great your getting this information out so others learn from others mistakes! I just love aviation!

[KenNewberry]

Thanks Victor for your analysis. I remember this incident well. There was another incident where another AC aircraft was lined up with a taxiway at SFO.

[Rilex]

i still think US should change the law, and atc not be able to give clear to land while another airplanes are taking of or crossing the runway, just say continue approach;

[Jefro]

UA landing clearly slowed much quicker than usual and reacted well to the incident

[stevenazar]

Great Video!

SFO has some serious issues:
-close parallel runways
-crossing runways
-taxiways with little clearance
-visibility concerns from the tower
-lots of traffic during rush periods
-large numbers of heavy-and super-aircraft
-fog/smoke/weather

Taxiway Tango is high-speed and diagonal, which makes it useful in some circumstances but tricky in others.

This video is great background for the amusing ATC recording/transcription I sent... looking forward to your take on it!

[Wolfeson]

Your suggestion about making full use of other exit taxiways would probably be a good idea for SFO in particular, since their parallel runways are simply too close for any of the taxiways between the runways to hold more than one aircraft, and there is no room for a central taxiway. Is this something that could be changed in the airport's SOP, and made a part of its published landing instructions, that landing clearances under certain (high-traffic) circumstances should include a specific exit? In the long-term, this could be augmented by technology, perhaps by installing a system of red lights at each runway exit to indicate any that are currently occupied, similar to how runway status lights currently indicate runways in use.

[YoNorton]

Love your videos and the new analyses.

[TheBluBalls]

Tower should have cleared the taxiway sooner instead of waiting. Even after hesitation, UAL2065 cleared the runway with plenty of time.

[MrEddieG]

Tango can almost hold 2 airplanes of that size, the SW was only a foot or so passed the hold Bar on Taxi way tango. the ACC pilot said fuck you im not going around because I can see the runway is clear, and ATC caused the issue by stacking 2 panes on Tango and having them stop and wait mid point on a active runway to cross. High speed roll out all the way to the fucking end. note the ACC pilot faced 0 discipline !

[stephenjones]

KSFO's runway layout seems designed to create conflicts. Two sets of parallel runways, each set ridiculously close to each other yet authorized for simultaneous approaches, with one set crossing the other pair not far askew from the mid-point of both pairs. On a daily, routine, operational basis, this design creates a locus of congestion where the four runway intersections concentrate. This is compounded by limited space on the exit taxiways between each pair of parallel runways. I make no comment on this specific incident as I am do not know all of the details, the scale of the airplanes relative to the map are not accurate, their sizes change over the course of the video and I have no idea if their positions are accurate at any given point in the video timeline to what actually happened. Regardless of who, if any one, was at fault in this incident, KSFO's runway and taxiway layout seems unforgiving and poorly considered from a safety standpoint.