Runway incursions are pretty spooky things.
This remains one of the most scary things I have witnessed. We were a few airplanes behind company waiting to take off.
I've seen that before, but it looks to me like she was looking at the RJ short of 18L full length while giving the clearance sub consciously to the Pilatus at the intersection. It's always scary when one of these things happens, especially one which could have been prevented so many times in a few second period.
-Controller clears a Pilatus onto the runway while looking at an airliner.
-Pilatus doesn't question the lack of "At intersection Alpha" in the clearance nor read it back, the takeoff clearance just issued to the airliner holding on the runway full length issued just before, the instruction to hold in position because of traffic landing on a runway crossing BEHIND them, and doesn't look down the runway to see the RJ rolling.
-RJ doesn't question the position and hold, probably assumes it was the guy behind them being cleared as it sounded like a full length clearance, even though it appears there was another RJ behind them.
-Controller doesn't notice what's happening until just before the alarm goes off.
Very scary, and those guys did an amazing job getting around the Pilatus and keeping calm and professional on the freq. Skin of their teeth, can't imagine seeing that.
I witnessed this from my parent's place up in the hills above SFO looking down at the airport. I glanced out the window from the living room and it caught my eye seeing the 170 rolling with a Brasilia not even thru the intersection. It seemed to unfold slow motion(I only saw the last 5 seconds or so) and from my angle above the airport, it looked like the Bro was going to roll by in time, but then it slammed on the brakes and stopped in the intersection, I couldn't believe what I was seeing and I was sure they were going to crash. When I saw the 170 climb away, it just didn't seem real and I swear what I saw didn't sink in until the first news story I saw that day. Met the Brasilia CA when I was working there(who was flying RJs by then)with my manager who had met the plane at the gate and got to hear first hand about the whole thing I witnessed before and after. Crazy stuff, I'll say there was a lot more anger in that Brasilia cockpit then the tapes reveal.
