An Alaska Airlines jet aborted its landing at San Francisco International Airport on Tuesday after the pilot spotted another aircraft on the runway where she had clearance to touch down. Passengers on Flight 528 felt an abrupt, jerking pull-up as the plane climbed away from the runway rather than complete its descent.
According to NBC Bay Area, it was the pilot — not an air traffic controller — who spotted the issue and initiated the abort. The pilot told passengers that an airplane taxiing across the runway end was questionably close to their arrival runway, and that the crew would circle back and try the landing again, the station reported.
Jake Milstein, an Alaska Airlines passenger and former KNTV employee who was aboard the flight, described the maneuver as a sharp, jerking upward motion. He said he was thankful the pilot recognized a dangerous situation, per the same NBC Bay Area account.
What Flight-Tracking Data Shows
Flightradar24 tracking data showed that two airplanes had landed on the same runway shortly before the Alaska flight, and that those aircraft were off the runway but still nearby, the station reported. Authorities have not determined the exact level of risk involved, and NBC Bay Area notes that safety investigations are expected to reveal more about what happened. The outlet reported that the current incident is expected to face scrutiny and investigation from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board.
An SFO spokesperson declined to comment, while representatives for both the FAA and Alaska Airlines did not immediately respond to requests for comment, according to the station's reporting.
Why SFO's Runways Leave Little Room for Error
San Francisco International Airport handles more than 1,000 flights daily across parallel runways that sit only 750 feet apart, according to San Francisco International Airport, which says aircraft must arrive single-file during low-visibility conditions. The airport averaged about 1,050 flights a day in 2025, per the same source. Pilot-initiated go-arounds like this one are designed to prevent tragedies in congested airspace, and are performed specifically to avoid potential collisions, NBC Bay Area reported.
Bay Area aviation expert Mike McCarron said SFO airspace is congested and requires attentiveness, according to the station. Federal Aviation Administration data cited by NBC Bay Area puts the rate of go-arounds at about one to three per 1,000 flights, though the San Francisco Chronicle separately reported that the FAA said there had been roughly 250 go-arounds overall at SFO since October 1. A NASA Technical Reports Server document gives a similar range of one to three per 1,000 approaches, though that figure is drawn from approaches rather than overall flights.
SFO Has Seen Close Calls Before
Tuesday's go-around is not the first time SFO's tightly spaced runways have produced a scare. The Chronicle reported that on May 19, 2023, both United and Alaska pilots aborted landings after spotting the same Southwest aircraft on their respective runways — the United jet descending to roughly 225 feet and the Alaska flight to about 550 feet, with the Southwest plane on Runway 28 Right, before each crew pulled up.
An even closer call occurred on July 7, 2017, when an Air Canada Airbus A320 mistakenly lined up to land on a taxiway instead of a parallel runway. Accounts of just how close that plane came to disaster differ: NBC Bay Area reported the aircraft came within 60 feet of ground traffic before the crew pulled up, while the plane passed one commercial jet by only 14 feet before aborting. The National Transportation Safety Board's case file states that Air Canada Flight 759 had been cleared to land on Runway 28R but instead lined up with parallel taxiway C.
Separately, NBC Bay Area's reporting referenced a 2023 near-miss involving a FedEx flight and a Southwest Airlines jet, though it is not established whether that incident is the same as the documented May 2023 SFO aborted landings. Close calls aren't unique to the Bay Area, either — the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that an Air France aircraft at LAX entered the path of a departing plane, coming within 500 vertical feet of an American Airlines flight bound for Dallas-Fort Worth before air traffic control issued corrective instructions.
