LUCKY ESCAPE

Pilots Take Drastic Measures to Avoid Runway Disaster

Pilots had to think quickly when they saw another plane blocking the runway.

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An Alaska Airlines flight had to scrap its landing at San Francisco International Airport on Tuesday after a pilot saw another plane blocking the runway. Alaska Flight 528 performed a go-around before eventually landing at SFO. “There was an airplane that was taxiing across the end of the runway that was questionable, in terms of the proximity to our arrival runway,” the pilot said. “It wasn’t a gentle motion. It wasn’t like we came down, and then gently went up. We were coming down, and then the up was a bit of a jerk,” said Jake Milstein, a passenger on the Boeing 737. “Everybody looked at each other on the plane like, what’s happening here,” he said. Aborted landings or “go-arounds” occur in about one to three out of every 1,000 flights, the Federal Aviation Administration reports. The move usually involves a plane climbing back into the air, canceling the planned landing to avoid a collision.