Southwest lands at wrong airport?

Wonder who got the call to do that flight... someone from the training dept/management or a regular reserve pilot?
 
DE727UPS said:
Maybe it's just time to not do visuals anymore like it is in Europe and Asia. If you thought Part 117 was a pain, imagine the delays if we don't do visuals anymore. It really might be for the best, though.
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OK, I'm going to sound off like an old crotchety curmudgeon now. But, NO. No, it would not be best. It would, in fact, be a stupidly, bureaucratically generalized solution to a peculiar, minimal problem.

Some "pilots" stall a perfectly good airliner into a seawall. Some other "pilots" stall/spin a perfectly good airliner into a neighborhood. Some other "pilots" land perfectly good airliners at the wrong airports. And so our solution should be to raise a sound and a fury and release the hounds of regulation? to punish every other pilot? to further gum up the system? to make aviators even more stressed in the execution of their duties? I reject that solution. Eliminating visuals would probably bring as much success as the new 1500hr rule.

While specific to our industry, stalling airplanes and landing at incorrect airports are hardly problems endemic to our industry. Only a few incorrigibly lame or untrained, or inexperienced, or very very sleepy, or very very stressed people do these things!!

Maybe my standards are too high, but if you land at the wrong airport, you have quite obviously lost situational awareness in a seemingly spherical fashion. If you make this kind of mistake and you are not a student pilot on his/her first few night XCs, then... YOU SHOULD NOT BE FLYING AIRPLANES!!! In he case of stress or sleepiness, you still should not be flying airplanes at least that day.

I'm sorry. I'm really a very understanding, empathetic, and forgiving person. But anyone possessing a commercial (or higher) pilot cert who stalls an airliner or who lands a highly advanced modern airliner at the wrong airport falls outside my envelope of understanding and empathy. What's next? Are we going to keep around the db bankers who ran the world economy over a cliff, pay off their losses, and give them raises so they can make the same "mistakes" again?

How many clues does one need to avoid making the mistake of landing on the wrong runway at the wrong airport? I will be the first to give folks the benefit of the doubt. Lord (and copilots) know I've made my share of stupid blunders. I'm not asking for or in any way expecting human perfection. What makes humans so great, and so unlike machines is their ability to screw up in unique and wonderful ways but then to identify, adapt and recover rather than just to continue on an inexorable course. I would argue that this ability continually to recognize and adapt is probably the most important trait to look for in a pilot. It's probably the core aspect of what a good pilot is... other than a monkey with a stick.

So that said, I can easily see someone heading for the wrong airport. Easy to do. But still lots of time to identify the situation and change it. I can easily see someone lining up for the wrong runway. Again, easy. But even at that point any moderately competent, cognizant pilot still has lots of options for recognizing the error and correcting the situation. Think of all the clues: radio freqs, backup IAP loaded, runway layout, runway length and aspect ratio vs expected, runway heading vs expected, surrounding geographic area layout, beacon position, runway and approach lighting and VGSI lighting systems and positions. And all those don't even touch on all the instrument checks and crosschecks one has available in the airplane, not the least of which these days is a little moving map situational PICTURE that shows where you are relative to where you want to be going. Recognizing ANY ONE of these clue factors as discrepant should have put at least ONE OF THE TWO folks in the cockpit on high alert which in turn should have engendered a series of additional verification checks. No time you say? Going too fast you say? Well, then just go the hell around and get things sorted. It's a 2 minute solution to a potential lifetime problem.
We like to talk about how fast everything happens in airplanes, but there is usually a good deal of time to get things squared away, especially with two folks sitting up front cross checking each other's work. And especially when those folks are making 4-5 X my income and getting good health insurance. Dammit. <end rant>



Boris Badenov said:
At least according to flight aware, they landed at 23:30 or so. Tower closed, I think.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA4013

http://www.airnav.com/airport/KBBG

Not that that's like an excuse in any way, but let's hang em later. You know, after we round up some kangaroos for the court! ;)
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What I read was that the tower cleared them to land around 6pm Sunday. I think I actually might have heard them on Center freq. I was flying right over that area at the time eating a ham sandwich while making noises about the 49ers...and, uh, planning ahead on how not to land at the wrong Wichita airport ;)
 
tomokc said:
Could be worse. Our local news broadcasts are a series of questions: "What did the bomb squad find hidden under the federal courthouse steps today?"
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Damn, so THAT's where I left my keys!!
 
Cool climb out, but all that hype over nothing. This Ethiopian 767 making a "surprise" unannounced diversion to a tiny airport in Africa and having to get back out a week or two ago, now that was impressive.

 
So a crew can land at the wrong airport and come a few hundred feet from possible injury/death of passengers, and most on here say the crew should not be fired.

The union people here will talk about a "just safety culture," and how firing the crew won't fix anything. Let's ignore the "safety" side of this for a minute. What about from a PR perspective? Would it be okay for SW to fire the crew simply for the negative press this is bringing the company?

Before you answer, keep in mind your response to A&Es firing of Phil Robertson. Their employee did/said something that brought a ton of negative attention to the network, so they fired the guy. Almost everyone here said A&E had the right to fire an employee for possibly damaging the company's image.

Why is this different?
 
"I reject that solution. Eliminating visuals would probably bring as much success as the new 1500hr rule."

I like the 1500 hour rule. It generally increases the experience required to be an airline pilot. That's a good thing. If we quit doing visuals the ATC system would initially have some trouble with capacity. Some delays. Then they would hire more controllers to make it work. This is actually good for the controllers hiring situation. Really, there is nothing easier for an airline pilot than vectors to an ILS. I got no problem with making life easier for airline pilots. Or expecting them to have at least 1500 hours to sit in the right seat of an airline jet. Airline management wants you to cut corners cause it saves them money. Visuals save them money....most of the time. I say we stop it now.
 
qflyer said:
So a crew can land at the wrong airport and come a few hundred feet from possible injury/death of passengers, and most on here say the crew should not be fired.

The union people here will talk about a "just safety culture," and how firing the crew won't fix anything. Let's ignore the "safety" side of this for a minute. What about from a PR perspective? Would it be okay for SW to fire the crew simply for the negative press this is bringing the company?

Before you answer, keep in mind your response to A&Es firing of Phil Robertson. Their employee did/said something that brought a ton of negative attention to the network, so they fired the guy. Almost everyone here said A&E had the right to fire an employee for possibly damaging the company's image.

Why is this different?
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Think he got suspended due to a public backlash, then unsuspended due to a public backlash along with the rest of his family saying they were going to walk.
 
qflyer said:
So a crew can land at the wrong airport and come a few hundred feet from possible injury/death of passengers, and most on here say the crew should not be fired.

The union people here will talk about a "just safety culture," and how firing the crew won't fix anything. Let's ignore the "safety" side of this for a minute. What about from a PR perspective? Would it be okay for SW to fire the crew simply for the negative press this is bringing the company?

Before you answer, keep in mind your response to A&Es firing of Phil Robertson. Their employee did/said something that brought a ton of negative attention to the network, so they fired the guy. Almost everyone here said A&E had the right to fire an employee for possibly damaging the company's image.

Why is this different?
Click to expand...
Actually, Robertson was not fired, he was suspended. That brought a ton of negative feedback to A&E. He was brought back a week later. It was all b.s. to cover their own butts (they could care less what he said it was all false bravado) and not lose/jeopardize the biggest cash cow that they have.

Now you want to judge this crew on the "what ifs" and not on what actually occurred? Do you have the actual truth/ answers of how and why this happened? Have you listened to the CVR? If so, please feel free to share the facts and the data.

CEOs and other management make decisions all the time which negatively affect the public image of the carriers and do not properly address customer service, on time issues and a host of other problems. I don't see any of them being canned. Half the crap they pull on their employees, the public is not even aware of and management sure as hell doesn't care how their own employees perceive them.
 
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