Silver Airways Saab Lands At Wrong Airport

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Let me ask you this, what's an offense that you'd consider fire-able in terms of actual aviation. (non-drug related personal stuff)

Careless and reckless operation is where I would draw the line. Honest mistakes that any pilot could make are not careless and reckless. Your macho attitude is shielding you from seeing that you could have easily made this same mistake, just like a seasoned Delta crew landed on a taxiway at an airport they've landed at thousands of times. Trust me, you aren't better than they are.

 

[pete2800]

I'm not sure I see the connection between landing safely at the wrong airport and augering in due to poor airmanship.

Maybe, but while we're making comparisons and all.... I sure as heck can see a similarity between landing at the wrong airport, and attempting a takeoff on the wrong runway. That one did kill people.

 

[z987k]

I've got to go with huggies on this one. If I land at the wrong airport tomorrow, I will be fired. And I'd expect to be, especially if it was half the length and I went off(I realize they didn't but this mistake can easily cause this).
This IS a lack of airmanship. Complete and total loss of SA, actually being lost, not using the tool available etc etc. Am I the only one who still dials in the approaches (ILS, VOR, GPS) even VFR? I especially do it when there's parallels.
Look down... hmmm, full scale, but I'm straight in front of the runway... something isn't right.

 

[jhugz]

Careless and reckless operation is where I would draw the line. Honest mistakes that any pilot could make are not careless and reckless. Your macho attitude is shielding you from seeing that you could have easily made this same mistake, just like a seasoned Delta crew landed on a taxiway at an airport they've landed at thousands of times. Trust me, you aren't better than they are.

How is landing at an airport that probably doesn't meet the landing requirements of PT121, almost surely not following SOPs on setting up for an approach in night VMC, the inability to function as a crew member, and the lack of SA not careless and reckless?

So were the Comair pilots not careless and reckless then?

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

How is landing at an airport that probably doesn't meet the landing requirements of PT121, almost surely not following SOPs on setting up for an approach in night VMC, the inability to function as a crew member, and the lack of SA not careless and reckless?

Lots of ass-umptions here. How do you know that they didn't follow SOP? How do you know they didn't function well as a crew? As for SA, every experienced pilot loses SA on occasion. You'll figure that out someday. Hopefully your attitude doesn't get you killed first.

So were the Comair pilots not careless and reckless then?

No. Every pilot who flew into that airport prior to that accident said the same thing: "this runway configuration is an accident waiting to happen." No one was surprised when it finally did.

 

[z987k]

Lots of ass-umptions here. How do you know that they didn't follow SOP? How do you know they didn't function well as a crew? As for SA, every experienced pilot loses SA on occasion. You'll figure that out someday. Hopefully your attitude doesn't get you killed first.

I agree with the second part, but both airports have approaches. RNAV at that. And it's not like this airplane is /U or something. One has a VOR just off the field. The other is many miles away. If they were following SOP, it's a POS SOP.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

No one here has any idea what equipment was deferred, what the flight conditions were, what the workload in the cockpit was, etc. No one should be judging this crew without the facts.

 

[z987k]

No one here has any idea what equipment was deferred, what the flight conditions were, what the workload in the cockpit was, etc. No one should be judging this crew without the facts.

Well I hope it wasn't IMC.

 

[surreal1221]

No one here has any idea what equipment was deferred, what the flight conditions were, what the workload in the cockpit was, etc. No one should be judging this crew without the facts.

What's the fun in passing on the opportunity to crucify fellow crew members?

 

[Old Dominion Flyer]

For those wondering if you get fired for this offense: The Colgan Saab Captain who mistakenly landed at the wrong airport enroute to Lake Charles was able to keep his job. He went through a handful of retraining sims. I can't comment on the FO, never met him.

However, I'm not privy to the details of the discussion that may have occurred between ALPA and Colgan. Nor do I know how Silver and the Teamsters may handle the the Fairmont incident.

 

[Old Dominion Flyer]

No one here has any idea what equipment was deferred, what the flight conditions were, what the workload in the cockpit was, etc. No one should be judging this crew without the facts.

Does anyone know if the CKB ILS is still OTS? It was out this spring/early summer due to construction on the runway.

 

[v1valarob]

Does anyone know if the CKB ILS is still OTS? It was out this spring/early summer due to construction on the runway.

GP is OTS. Localizer is running.

 

[Seggy]

For those saying 'the crew should be fired' are just ignorant.

Remember, a handful of weeks ago a C-17 landed at a small airport instead of MacDill. These things DO happen on ALL experience levels.

 

[Jimmy_Norton]

Boy, only amateurs could ever make this mistake. Highly trained Air Force pilots in a highly automated $100 million dollar airplane could never make the same mistake as these shoddy commuter pilots who should not only be fired, but sent to the firing squad.

Now, if they were in a Cirrus, they could have just pulled the chute, and never needed to put their shoulder harnesses on.

 

[ctab5060X]

No one here has any idea what equipment was deferred, what the flight conditions were, what the workload in the cockpit was, etc. No one should be judging this crew without the facts.

Thank you Todd.

 

[Autothrust Blue]

As they should.

Eh.

Make an honest mistake, but still in compliance with SOP and FARs? Maybe not.

Make a mistake, then lie about it? You're out, and furthermore, the company probably won't and should not help you with the Feds.

 

[Autothrust Blue]

No. Every pilot who flew into that airport prior to that accident said the same thing: "this runway configuration is an accident waiting to happen." No one was surprised when it finally did.

Unlike jhugz, I've actually been to Lexington.

Even post-relocation of the runway, those taxiways leading out to the big runway still do not have great signage. They moved the runway, but they didn't do so hot on the signs. It remains a threat—but one that should have been (could have been, and, by myself and the Captain flying into and out of Lexington, was) mitigated appropriately by cross-checking runway heading against the HSI and your mental model of where the airplane is, using high threat taxi procedures, observing sterile cockpit, and so on.

It's one of those things that falls under "yeah, I can see that happening"—which is why there are now three paragraphs in the SOP about confirming you're entering the right runway, and confirming you're pointing the right way. It's really common sense stuff, but now, it's written.

That, however, is another matter.

Remember, a handful of weeks ago a C-17 landed at a small airport instead of MacDill. These things DO happen on ALL experience levels.

Does not change the fact that someone will at LEAST be getting in trouble for it.

Incidentally, I'm underwhelmed by that incident.

For those wondering if you get fired for this offense: The Colgan Saab Captain who mistakenly landed at the wrong airport enroute to Lake Charles was able to keep his job. He went through a handful of retraining sims. I can't comment on the FO, never met him.

However, I'm not privy to the details of the discussion that may have occurred between ALPA and Colgan. Nor do I know how Silver and the Teamsters may handle the the Fairmont incident.

I'll be curious as to what really happened. If you mess up, you fess up—and if you are honest about it I think you're alright to keep your job. It's not likely that you'll ever do it again after the (you know) storm subsides.

 

[jrh]

For those suggesting the crew should be fired...I'm curious, what would this accomplish? Would the crew who replaces them certainly be immune to their own mistakes? Or would it just be to send a message to the rest of the pilot group, "Screw up and you're gone?" Either way, firing them seems counterproductive unless they've had a history of problems.

 

[SteveC]

Corollary story time:

Yesterday I flew on a Lear 40 that was going to the factory at Wichita for a pre-buy inspection. The seller provided a crew to fly the airplane, but the PIC was kind enough to let me fly right seat so I could check out all the systems in-flight and get a good feel for the plane during the reposition flight. Part of our conversation during the flight to KICT covered the fact that there are numerous similar sized airports around Wichita and that we would be cautious about picking the correct airport - conditions were calling for a visual approach and it is real easy to mistake airports there, at least from a long way out. We were planning on runway 1L for ease of taxiing to Bombardier, and that is the runway approach told us to expect for the visual approach when we checked in with them. The 1L ILS was OTS. We spotted the airport about 30 miles out, and were comfortable we had the correct airport based on the FMS info and the MFD map display matched location with what we were looking at. I put an RNAV approach to 1L into the FMS on my side since the ILS wasn't working and I wanted some additional course info. As we were approaching the airport from the west/northwest (see picture) the flying pilot calls out previously issued landing traffic in sight. I had been doing some checklist and FMS stuff so my head had been down for a short time, so I look and see a plane on short final, then look back at my instruments. For some reason what I'm seeing on my HSI, the direction of the final approach course needle in relationship to our current heading, and where I'm seeing the runway out the window doesn't look right to me. I say this to the pilot flying and he immediately listens to my concern and shallows the descent while we quickly sort it out. Unfortunately I wasn't as on-the-ball as I should have been because the airport diagram that we had was on his iPad, and I'm not familiar with how to use it, so I couldn't get the diagram back up to sort out which runways were which. I had a mental picture in my head of a secondary runway that was at an acute angle from our primary runway, but couldn't remember if it was clock-wise or counter-clockwise in direction from 1L, and I was concerned that he was maybe seeing the wrong one. The FMS and MFD both showed that the airport we were looking at was the correct one so we were confident on that part of the equation, but in the heat of the moment it looked to me like the inboard course needle showed us on closer to a downwind leg heading, rather than what looked more like a base leg when I looked out the window. By the time we sorted it out, and decided that he DID have the correct runway picked out (less than a minute of "confusion"), we were a tad high and crossing final, so requested and received a right 270 to rejoin. Lots of stuff happening in a very short time and we (I!) could have very easily caused an issue with an aircraft on approach to the parallel, or if there were one sequenced tight after us for the same runway, and all because I was being cautious. In hindsight I think I was primed to be TOO careful and I immediately said something to the PF when something looked wrong, while what I should have done was waited just another 15 or 20 seconds and made sure of my misgivings, during which time I probably would have gotten my mental map straightened out. I.E. I called wolf too soon and caused a problem where there wasn't one to begin with.

Moral of the story is that it is VERY easy to make mistakes, that it isn't always complacency or stupidity that causes errors, and that it can happen at any time to any crew.

My recommendation when reading these kind of stories is to try your best to not cast aspersions and to always try to put yourself in their place and think about what possible series of circumstances could have caused them to make the mistake they made. I think we can learn even more coming up with plausible reasons for the error than we can by pointing out what idiots they were.

YMMV.

 

[dasleben]

SteveC, good post. I agree that this can happen to anyone. That said, at any job I've had, I would have expected to lose my job over touching down at the wrong airport. Not to say that I would, but I'd go into the chief pilot's office prepared to hand over my badge. Nobody should downplay how significant an error this really is.