Air Canada pilot blames switched radio channel for close call in San Francisco

The pilot of an Air Canada plane that landed at San Francisco International despite repeated orders to abort the touchdown told US investigators the crew could not hear the commands because the cockpit radio's frequency had been changed The Airbus 320 from Montreal was within 2.1 kilometres of touching down Oct 22 when an air-traffic controller ordered the plane to abandon the landing because another passenger jet had not cleared the runway. When the Air Canada crew failed to respond, the controller repeated the "go around" command 6 times. The tower then took the unusual step of flashing a red light at the cockpit in a final attempt to wave it off, the FAA said. The orders went unheeded. After the pilot landed safely, he told the tower he had radio trouble. <br/>