Landing at the wrong airport...

An American Eagle/Executive crew did that.

Landed at the wrong airport on the island of St Lucia in the Caribbean, realized their screw up, and simply redeparted without talking to company, tower, or anyone.

The chief pilot had some crew behinds for breakfast that morning. He took a new crew and airplane down to St Lucia, and fired them in the outstation; and they had to find their own way back home.
 
Ralgha said:
There was a guy here who landed at the wrong airport. He didn't tell anyone and hopped over to the correct airport (don't know what the FO's opinion was). Sadly for him, there were a couple non-revs in the back who noticed. He got fired (don't know what happened to the FO).
Click to expand...


I can see how it happened, the airport that they landed at was only like 17 miles from CWA. :sarcasm:
 
I used to live in Frankfort, KY and everyone there talked about how a Delta 737 had landed there one time thinking they were at LEX. The story was that they had to remove all the unnecessary items from the aircraft in order for it to take off again. Anyone know anything about that? I think it was late 80s-early 90s sometime...before I lived there.
 
firebirdswm said:
I used to live in Frankfort, KY and everyone there talked about how a Delta 737 had landed there one time thinking they were at LEX. The story was that they had to remove all the unnecessary items from the aircraft in order for it to take off again. Anyone know anything about that? I think it was late 80s-early 90s sometime...before I lived there.
Click to expand...
Capt. Simon likes to go over that one in CRM. :D
 
Duksrule said:
Back in I think 90 or 91 it all runs together..... Anyway I was on the IKE and my airwing was the last ones with A-7s. The Saratoga was out with us and they had the shiny new F-18s. Imagine everyones surprise when we had a hornet in the break. Yeap guy landed on the wrong boat. We zapped the hell out of that plane and sent him home.
Click to expand...

:rawk:

"Zapped the hell out of that plane..." That's awesome!
 
Anyone been to El Paso? It's been a long time for me but my first time there I thought I was seeing double. There's almost a duplicate airport a few miles to the north I believe. A military base from what I remember. It would be soooo easy to screw up and land there.
 
Freightdog1 said:
Anyone been to El Paso? It's been a long time for me but my first time there I thought I was seeing double. There's almost a duplicate airport a few miles to the north I believe. A military base from what I remember. It would be soooo easy to screw up and land there.
Click to expand...
BIF (Biggs Army Airfield) with runway 21; ELP has runway 22. Approach will often tell airplanes approaching about Biggs to prevent them from landing there. At least once a week you also hear them tell an airliner they are lined up with the wrong runway.
 
Don't forget Ellsworth AFB and Rapid City Regional Airport....yes NWA mistakenly landed at Ellsworth a few years ago. He was on the VOR approach to 14 at RAP, broke out of the clouds and saw a runway and landed. The final approach course for that approach goes right over the base.
 
We have a similar situation where I'm at with an closed AFB near the airport with the same runway layout. If we see an aircraft headed to that airport we say something like "it appears your heading to the closed AFB". That has happened twice with an airline when I was working. I also had a citation coming from a direction where he looked like he was coming to the airport but would be overflying the closed AFB. I got a confused, "ah, approach?" "I am lining up for the runway in front of me, but my GPS shows I am still 14 miles from the airport." DING DING DING! That's the first clue. If you have the equipment to verify USE IT! If something doesn't look right, ASK!
 
I was flying into a small uncontrolled Army Air Field Near Boston many many years ago... we had to shoot this vor approach to get in.... ON the final approach dourse several miles short of the AAF is another smallish muni airport with the same runway layout... we even commented that night as we were shooting the approach that it would be possible to screw that up if you didnt keep good SA. Low and behold in the ops building at said AAF there was a notice on a board there with a notice about the similiar looking airfield. The ops guy told us ( this was 1988 ) that several years earlier a 130 crew had indeed landed there then took off and came on over. I have no idea what the result of all that was but it probably wasnt not good.
 
One of our local controllers used to work at SFO Tower and said that the chain of airports south of SFO caused a lot of mixed approaches. They had phones that were direct lines to the other tower so they could call and check if they had an extra plane in the pattern.
 
Bigey said:
Imagine talking to the tower.

CAL: "Tower, we're on kilo can we get directions to the gate?"
Tower: "Uh i dont see you, take next available taxiway and hold"
CAL: "Uhh tower, we're holding, but i just see some F-15s"
Tower: "Uhh alright, just continue holding, Contact Cabaniss on 124.75 good luck, and i hope you keep your job!"
Click to expand...

There are no F-15s as Cabiness. A T-44 or two (maybe), but no fighters.
 
Not to be a Monday morning quarterback or anything because I can see it how it can happen at some locations. All of the airports I fly to have an ILS or a localizer approach. I always, always use that for every approach mainly because I'm just to lazy to look out the window until short final. The localizer always takes me to the correct runway at the correct airport. I've flown to El Paso many, many times and I couldn't point out the AFB to you if you paid me and the same with all the airports around SFO.

I see so many of my fellow pilots craning their necks looking for the runway and turning off all of the automation when cleared for a visual. I never look for the runway. I just follow the purple line on the EHSI or the flight director in a hardball panel and it always leads me to the right place. Gives me altitudes and speeds as well!

So not to criticize because it can happen. But I've been flying for 35 years and I have yet to land at the wrong airport but I can see how it can happen. That's why I always, always use everything I have in the cockpit to point me to the right place. Looking out the windows is a pointless exercise.
 
This is funny stuff. I had no idea how prevalent this kind of mistake could be. Is it really that easy to land at the wrong airport?
 
vheissu said:
On a Visual Approach??
Click to expand...

Especially on a visual. Usually. At my airline we are required to brief at least the basics of the instrument approach when it is a visual. What nav-aids we will be using, etc. It has been my experience that guys doing a purely visual without using the backup instruments will almost always screw it up. They'll get too low or high, slow or fast without at least trying to hit the already established points on a published approach.

Another anecdote and why I never do a pure visual unless it is the last resort; when I was an F/O we were going into LAX late one night. We were doing the visual to 24R and 24L was closed for construction so all the lights were out on that runway. The captain had the ILS tuned up, the flight director on and everything else that we always do. But he lined up on the public street that runs parallel to 24R because he was so used to seeing two sets of lights and that road looks just like a runway from a few miles out. I told him he was right of course, the ILS was showing right of course and the flight director was commanding a left turn. All of that still didn't give him a clue. He insisted he was lined up perfectly for 24R. So we kept going for that road and I again told him he was lined up on a road to the north of the airport. He insisted I was wrong. I asked him to look at his ILS and FD and trust them and not his eyes. By that time we were on about a 1 mile final and he finally decided that maybe he was confused. On about a 1/2 mile final he finally saw the runway and the road became obvious. He was looking out the window the whole time. I was looking inside the whole time. That's why I don't look out the window.

Same with traffic most of the time. The TCAS sees the traffic long before I ever can and it gives me altitude and distance on the scope on the panel. My eyes aren't that good. Every time I have been the non flying pilot and we get a traffic resolution I have had to assertively command the flying pilot to follow the directions the TCAS is exhorting. They always say they see it but I say that what they are looking at might not be the problem traffic.

Of course, there are always exceptions and I do use my eyes and look outside and double check everything but the information presented inside the cockpit is almost always more accurate than your eyes. I trust that stuff when I'm IMC and on CAT III approaches so why wouldn't I trust it when it is visual? If you use what you have in the cockpit and have it set up right it will always take you to where you want to go. I use my outside visual cues as a backup and not a primary source of information.
 
LoadMasterC141 said:
This is funny stuff. I had no idea how prevalent this kind of mistake could be. Is it really that easy to land at the wrong airport?
Click to expand...

Oh hell yes. I did a sweet visual approach to Offut AFB one day until the controller insisted I join the LOC at Omaha.
 
Freightdog1 said:
Anyone been to El Paso? It's been a long time for me but my first time there I thought I was seeing double. There's almost a duplicate airport a few miles to the north I believe. A military base from what I remember. It would be soooo easy to screw up and land there.
Click to expand...

ATP flight school uses El Paso as a gas up point for XC's. Before we start our cross countries they give us this huge packet with all the airports and all the little things we need to know, and El Paso's had a HUGE warning about not landing at the wrong airport. Good thing I had read it. My partner was the PF and was cleared for the traffic pattern since it was blue skies and not a cloud in sight. He insisted at first the base was the airport we where going to. I assured him that the northern airport was the base, and southern was the civilian. It took about 30 seconds of convincing before he agreed with me. Besides the fact that we could see commercial airline traffic going in as well.

-Rob
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top