Passengers Get Scare After Pilots Pull Up, Abort Landing At SFO
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Passengers on a flight coming into San Francisco got a scare when pilots suddenly pulled up to perform a go-around maneuver.
"It felt like we were going pretty fast going down, and then all of a sudden he pulled straight up," passenger Abby Morimura said.
Just as her flight from New York was approaching SFO, Morimura says Flight 15 made a sudden change.
"It was scary. You're going down and all of a sudden you feel the plane go back up, and you throw your back in your seat because it's going up so quickly," Morimura said.
Abby says the sharp ascent knocked a flight attendant to the floor.
"She just completely fell, and we were all gasping, a little alarmed," Morimura said.
An FAA spokesman told KPIX 5 that the Jet Blue pilot reported to the tower he was simply doing a routine movement called a go-around, which is an aborted landing. More specifically, he believed that the tower had him at too high an altitude for a safe landing.
"You're looking for a nice stabilized approach, three degrees to the runway," Jonathan Bishop, a flight instructor at California Airways said.
Bishop says a steeper approach can be dangerous.
"If it's not within the confines of safety, then a go-around would be warranted there. You just go around and try another landing.
But, Abby insists she and other passengers heard the captain say it was actually a near-miss.
"The captain said that as we were trying to land that another plane was trying to run on the same runway, and that's why we suddenly had to stop what we were doing, and go back up into the air," Morimura said.
But after speaking with the plane's crew, Jet Blue says the maneuver was just a go-around, and no other plane was in sight.
