Airbus A320-211 C-FKCK

Summary

On 8 July 2017 at about 06:56 local time, a Airbus A320-211 registered C-FKCK, operated by Air Canada, was involved in an incident near San Francisco, California, United States. The number of people on board was not recorded. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

8 July 2017 at 06:56

Classification

Incident

Location

San Francisco, California, United States

Nearest airport

San Francisco International (SFO)

Coordinates

37.6153, -122.3581

Aircraft

Airbus A320-211

Registration

C-FKCK

Category

Airplane

Year built

1992

Engines

2

Operator

Air Canada

Operating rule

Part 129: Foreign

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Toronto → San Francisco

Aircraft damage

Not recorded

Weather

VMC

Light

Night/Dark

NTSB number

DCA17IA148

Injuries not recorded.

The flight crew's misidentification of taxiway C as the intended landing runway, which resulted from the crewmembers' lack of awareness of the parallel runway closure due to their ineffective review of notice to airmen (NOTAM) information before the flight and during the approach briefing. Contributing to the incident were (1) the flight crew's failure to tune the instrument landing system frequency for backup lateral guidance, expectation bias, fatigue due to circadian disruption and length of continued wakefulness, and breakdowns in crew resource management and (2) Air Canada's ineffective presentation of approach procedure and NOTAM information.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

NTSB investigators traveled in support of this investigation and used data obtained from various sources to prepare this aircraft incident report. The NTSB's full report is available at http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/AccidentReports.aspx. The Aircraft Incident Report number is NTSB/AIR-18/01. On July 7, 2017, about 2356 Pacific daylight time, Air Canada flight 759, an Airbus A320-211, Canadian registration C-FKCK, was cleared to land on runway 28R at San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, California, but instead lined up with parallel taxiway C. Four air carrier airplanes (a Boeing 787, an Airbus A340, another Boeing 787, and a Boeing 737) were on taxiway C awaiting clearance to take off from runway 28R. The incident airplane descended to an altitude of 100 ft above ground level and overflew the first airplane on the taxiway. The incident flight crew initiated a go-around, and the airplane reached a minimum altitude of about 60 ft and overflew the second airplane on the taxiway before starting to climb. None of the 5 flight crewmembers and 135 passengers aboard the incident airplane were injured, and the incident airplane was not damaged. The incident flight was operated by Air Canada under Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 129 as an international scheduled passenger flight from Toronto/Lester B. Pearson International Airport, Toronto, Canada. An instrument flight rules flight plan had been filed. Night visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the incident.  

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.