Air-ground communications at San Francisco indicate that a tower controller warned an Asiana Airbus A350-900 crew over the jet’s altitude after it sank below the glidepath on approach.
The crew of Asiana flight OZ212 from Seoul had been conducting the approach to runway 28L, at about 14:00 on 23 February.
Shortly after clearing the aircraft to land, and then confirming the landing clearance to the crew, the tower controller transmitted: “Check your altitude immediately, altimeter is 3026.”
The exchange was captured by communications archive LiveATC.
“Are you correcting?” the controller asked, before the Asiana crew responded that they were going around.
After being told to fly the runway heading, the crew appeared to state that they were climbing to 4,000ft – to which the controller stressed that the aircraft needed to maintain 3,000ft.
The height of the aircraft at the point of the controller’s altitude warning has not been confirmed, but the A350 was in the vicinity of Coyote Point around 2.7nm from the runway.
Its crew completed the go-around and returning to land safely on 28L about 15min later.
Circumstances of the incident have yet to become clear, including whether the crew was aware of the altitude situation before the controller’s warning.
Meteorological data from the airport at the time shows good visibility and no adverse weather conditions.
Twelve years ago an Asiana Boeing 777-200ER, operating flight OZ214, struck the sea wall just short of runway 28L after its airspeed fell and the jet dipped below the glidepath.
As a result of the accident, during which the twinjet crashed on the runway, three of the 307 occupants sustained fatal injuries.
US investigators found that the crew had been fatigued and mismanaged the descent profile while carrying out a visual approach to 28L. The pilots had an inaccurate understanding of the interaction between autopilot and autothrottle, and unintentionally deactivated the automatic airspeed control. Inadequate monitoring of the decaying airspeed, and a delayed go-around, led to the accident.
Asiana reportedly retired the OZ214 flight number, replacing it with OZ212.
Korean Air acquired Asiana at the end of last year. FlightGlobal has approached Korean Air for comment.
Air transport safety in Korea is under scrutiny from the government following the fatal Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 accident at Muan in December and the Air Busan Airbus A321 fire at Gimhae at the end of January.
