I reported our incident during landing in San Franisco Saturday afternoon to the NTSB over the weekend, and got an automated reply that it was being routed to the investigator assigned to the case. If there is one…

That’s another story, I guess. A haven’t been able to find any indication of a preliminary incident report being filed, although it seems that it might not have been posted online over the weekend. Someone else may have more luck. The search involves United Airlines Flight 373 from Honolulu to San Francisco during landing at SFO on Saturday about 3:15 pm Pacific Daylight time.

Data from the flight log appears on Flight Aware. It confirms that our flight was at about 1,050 feet altitude after passing over the San Mateo Bridge on its landing approach when it suddenly accelerated, quickly gained altitude, and then turned inland and circled around for another attempt. It was at that low point that Meda looked out the window and saw another aircraft below us. If we were just a thousand feet above the bay, as indicated in the flight log data, then only a few hundred feet separated us vertically from the other aircraft. It seems to me that this must required a report by report to filed by the pilot or crew.

I entered the location of our flight just as it broke off the first landing attempt and powered up and away, circling back toward the airport at about 5,000 feet altitude before making its second and successful landing approach. Then I entered the location in Google Earth, which produced this photo of our position about when the incident occurred. The red dot marks the United flight’s position.

Screenshot