we turn next hertoew reporting tonight after we learned of a close call at the san francisco airport. a major disaster narrowly averted, an air canada passenger plane coming in for a landing, heading straight for a taxiway, where four other passenger planes were waiting to take off. up to 1,000 passengers on those planes. here s abc s david kerley. reporter: new details tonight on a disaster averted on this runway. an air canada pilot, confused on a night approach. tower, i just want to confirm. this is air canada 7-5-9 we see some lights on the runway there. air canada 759 confirmed, cleared to land 2-8 right. there is no one on 2-8 right but you. reporter: what the pilot of the a-320 was actually seeing friday night were four other jets, potentially carrying up to 1,000 people on the taxiway running parallel to the runway. a pilot on the ground sounding the alarm. where is this guy going? he is on the taxiway. reporter: less than ten seconds later, the pilot told to abort