The final report from the US National Transportation Safety Board on the near-miss at San Francisco in 2017 says the pilots delayed reporting the incident to Air Canada. Associated Press says the captain, identified in NTSB documents as Dimitrios Kisses, was supposed to report the San Francisco incident to the airline as soon as possible but didn’t because he was “very tired” and it was late. He waited until the next day. By that time, the plane was used for another flight, and the audio loop on the cockpit voice recorder was taped over. The NTSB does not allege that Kisses and co-pilot Matthew Dampier deliberately delayed reporting the incident, but it did say that investigators could have gained a better understanding of what the crew was doing before the close call. The jet flew less than 60 feet over crowded planes waiting to take off.
CONFUSED BY CLOSED RUNWAY
The NTSB is considering recommending that cockpit recorders capture the last 25 hours of flying time, up from two hours under current rules. Board member Weener also criticized the airline industry’s reliance on self-reporting of safety issues, saying the industry and the Federal Aviation Administration should consider stronger measures to intervene after a dangerous situation. Weener noted that other pilots were alert enough to turn on lights to warn the off-course Air Canada jet. Yet once the danger passed, he said, they took no action to prompt “an intervention and evaluation of the Air Canada crew.” The five-member board determined last month that the incident was caused by the Air Canada pilots being confused because one of two parallel runways was closed that night. The closure was noted in a briefing to the pilots, and nine other planes had made routine landings after the runway was shut down.