Todd Sampson

On my flight home today (United Airlines Flight 954) from San Diego (SAN) to San Francisco (SFO) our Boeing B-757 had to do a touch-and-go landing. After taking off immediately again, the plane circled for about fifteen minutes and landed safely.

While circling, the pilot for our plane came over the radio and said that air traffic control at SFO had ordered the landing abort for our plane and the one behind us. He also said that he was not sure why the landing had been called off, but “sometimes the tower sees something we don’t see up here in the cockpit.” After the plane landed, the pilot announced that the tower was declaring the incident an FAA Runway Incursion by another aircraft; but he did not agree. He went on to say that he and co-pilot did see another plane, but felt it was far enough away for a safe landing.

This was a first for me. After looking for news about today’s incident — I found nothing four hours after it occurred — I did find an article about SFO having four Runway Incursion incidents in 2007. This was enough to put SFO on the FAA’s list of risky airports in the United States.

When the Runway Incursion incident is filed, you should be able to see the report online.