A new animated simulation illustrates just how close an Air Canada jet was last Friday to killing about 1000 people at SFO. As we now learn via NBC Bay Area, Air Canada Flight 759 was dangerously close, as in just a few hundred feet, from landing on a taxiway that the pilot mistook for a runway, which would have ended with his plane colliding with four planes that were lined up for takeoff, all loaded with fuel and passengers.

The animation shows the plane's approach over Taxiway C, which runs parallel to the runway that the pilot should have been lined up with, Runway 28R. An air traffic controller, possibly alerted by one of the pilots in the planes on the ground, ordered the Air Canada pilot at the last minute to "go around," and we now see that that occurred at an altitude of about 340 feet.

Flight 759 had 135 people on board, and the other four jets had a combined 800 to 1000 people on board.

(Apologies that the video below is so small. Blame NBC Bay Area. Full size is here.)

The incident happened around 11:45 p.m. on Friday and has sent the aviation community reeling because of the implications of the near-miss. And the animation shows us why that United pilot, whose plane was practically clipped by the descending Air Canada Airbus, said over the radio, "Air Canada just flew directly over us." He meant directly over us.

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones tells NBC Bay Area that he was on the Air Canada flight, on his way home from a conference in Toronto. "It was just really strange because clearly something was wrong, but they didn't really give us any information afterward," Jones tells the station. "So to see that we almost landed on four planes full of passengers is a little disturbing."

Apparently the pilot tried to play it off like there was just too much traffic at the airport, and passengers were not informed of why they pulled out of the descent at the last minute. "I've never experienced something like that for as low we were," Jones says. "You could tell something wasn't right."

An investigation into the incident is ongoing, and it's unclear if or how the pilot might be reprimanded.

Previously: Close Call Involving Air Canada Flight Friday At SFO Could Have Caused Major Aviation Disaster