Narrative:

Tip toe visual to 28L. Had traffic; A319; called in the descent for 28R. Traffic went below cloud deck so he was not in sight. Controller stepped us down until below the cloud deck. Had traffic in sight. As we came down to capture the glide path from above we caught up with the A319. We were localizer capture on 28L. We were dead abeam with the A319 and he was close! I do not know if he overshot 28R center line or not. I decided too close for me and as I went for the toga; the TCAS RA 'climb climb climb.' we executed a normal go around. Went around for left downwind and made a normal approach and landing on 28R. The passengers on the right side of the aircraft were grateful; as they saw the whole thing quite clearly. Suggestions; sfo operates on the edge of safety with simultaneous double parallel and intersecting runways operations (28L/right for landing and 1R/left for take-off) I am quite surprised that it is authorized to operate TCAS in the TA only mode (note on 10-7 page). Having had friends killed after silencing a safety system; I would never operate in TA only mode. In the future; I will be sure to have longitudinal separation of any parallel traffic. A kudos to the training department on the debrief with the first officer; I asked him if I did the go around correctly. He said it was textbook. It all happened so fast; we just did it and I didn't remember. Relaxed and controlled.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: SFO Air Carrier landing Runway 28L experienced a TCAS RA with traffic on the parallel runway and executed a go around.

Narrative: Tip Toe Visual to 28L. Had traffic; A319; called in the descent for 28R. Traffic went below cloud deck so he was not in sight. Controller stepped us down until below the cloud deck. Had traffic in sight. As we came down to capture the glide path from above we caught up with the A319. We were LOC capture on 28L. We were dead abeam with the A319 and he was CLOSE! I do not know if he overshot 28R center line or not. I decided too close for me and as I went for the TOGA; the TCAS RA 'Climb Climb Climb.' We executed a normal go around. Went around for left downwind and made a normal approach and landing on 28R. The passengers on the right side of the aircraft were grateful; as they saw the whole thing quite clearly. Suggestions; SFO operates on the edge of safety with simultaneous double parallel and intersecting runways operations (28L/R for landing and 1R/L for take-off) I am quite surprised that it is authorized to operate TCAS in the TA only mode (note on 10-7 page). Having had friends killed after silencing a safety system; I would never operate in TA only mode. In the future; I will be sure to have longitudinal separation of any parallel traffic. A kudos to the training department on the debrief with the FO; I asked him if I did the go around correctly. He said it was textbook. It all happened so fast; we just did it and I didn't remember. Relaxed and controlled.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.