Disaster was avoided at San Francisco International Airport last week when two planes aborted landing after spotting a Southwest Airlines plane taxiing on the runways where two incoming planes were cleared to land.
The arrival United Airlines flight was only a couple of hundred feet above the runway on May 19 when the pilots saw the Southwest plane and decided to abandon the landing and take off back into the sky.
Seconds later, the crew of an Alaskan Airlines flight that was also about to land saw the plane swerve onto a parallel runway. His pilots followed suit and abandoned the landing.
“You should not be on the runway,” an air traffic controller scolded the Southwest jet crew, according to audio obtained by LiveATC.com.
When the pilot tried to give an evidence, he was quickly cut off.
“I do not need arguments,” the air traffic controller said sternly.
Each planes circled the airport before finally landing safely.
![United plane flying](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000008216782.jpg?w=1024)
The Federal Aviation Administration described the incident as a “runway incursion”.
“The FAA reviewed these events and determined that appropriate steps were taken to ensure the safety of operations,” the agency said.
The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed it was not investigating the incident first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Southwest spokesman Chris Perry told the Chronicle
Aborted landings are “pretty routine,” Southwest spokesman Chris Pery told the newspaper. “If something was mistaken with this, we are going to work with the FAA on the next steps.”
Last week’s peril got here as transport safety officials investigated several similar cases lately.
San Francisco Airport was the scene of a horrific disaster in 2017 when Air Canada jet pilots mistook a taxiway for a runway and nearly landed on 4 other planes waiting to take off. The plane missed the others by only 14 feet.
The FAA announced this week it could invest $100 million in improvements at 12 airports – not counting San Francisco – to (*2*)reduce the variety of “runway incursions”.“.
With postal wires