The National Transportation Safety Board released data on Thursday to show just how close an Air Canada flight was from what could have been the worst crash in aviation history.
About one metre was all that was standing in the way of a disaster.
New information shows that Air Canada flight 759 got as close as 18 metres above the tarmac at San Francisco Airport. Four planes were in it’s path, two were United airlines 787s, which stand at just under 17 metres.
David Rohrer, who has investigated crashes before describes what could have been.
“He’s going probably 120/miles an hour at least and just the momentum would careen it into the next one and possibly the one behind that. So you could have four airliners that are probably at capacity all involved with a high probability of death and destruction.”
The worst crash ever happened forty years ago on the Canary Islands when two 747’s collided on the runway, killing 583 people.
Because no one was hurt and there was no actual damage to the planes involved, David Rohrer tells us that the reconstruction of this near crash could be complete much sooner than if this were a fatal crash.
“They’ll do a total computerized reconstruction, in real time with real data, real conversation between the pilots, real conversation between the arrival controller and all the aircraft.”
Unfortunately, investigators couldn’t hear what was said between pilots during the botched landing. That’s because the recording was overwritten when the same plane flew to Montreal the next day.
Rohrer – who still flies – wonders what landing steps were missed.
“Before you start your decent you do a complete breakdown of the arrival: how you’re going to arrive, what arrival you’re going to fly, what instrument approach you’re going to fly, what the weather is”
Or if those steps were dismissed. Both pilots had a combined 30,000 hours of flight experience.
“I’ve done this so many times before, we’ve got this, we know this procedure, we know this approach and then not cross checking the instrumentation in the airplane.”
While the NTSB has most of the information at it’s fingertips, it could be over a year until their investigation is complete. In terms of potential repercussions for the pilots, David Rohrer says to expect some discipline and for their identities to be released as the investigation goes further.
