Southwest lands at wrong airport?

AM011309 said:
Exactly. Usually how it works when it's slow at night.
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I was flying around SAT late one night with a student and Contienital checked in with approach for what must have been the last flight of the day. He must have been 60 miles out.

APR: "Cleared for the visual 12R, cleared to land, cleared to the gate, have a good night."

CAL123: "That about covers it"
 
I don't fly 121 and am low-time, but FWIW, I landed at the wrong field once in a CRJ sim with a classmate doing a visual approach. We wanted to land at KSLC, and had the ILS tuned, identified and verified. We failed though. Foolishly enough, we landed at some other airport (can't recall the name) which had an identically numbered runway, and which ALSO happened to have a nearly identical ILS. Both airports were nearly aligned with one another too, so the localizer didn't indicate an error when the frequency was tuned in. We landed on it and then noticed that we landed at the wrong field, doh! It was laughable, but I'm glad that it happened to us in hindsight. If we had just given heed to what we didn't question, we would have caught our gaffing mistake in advance.

Our instruments were telling us that the distance to the airport was 20 miles away, and our glideslope was not functioning at all. Unfortunately since both airports are so closely aligned, the localizer was pegged dead center. We chose to ignore those other indications because the sim in which we were assigned annoyingly had a tendency to behave erratically all too often. That was our first big (and dumb) mistake. Making things worse, we should have noticed before we landed that the airport also looked different from the air. Maybe we could have gone around.

So, big lessons learned. We were both so focused on setting up for the approach that we didn't regard much else, even when things indicated otherwise. If something looks wrong, then it likely is. Question it right away! Yea, I know that it was just in a sim, but I find myself wondering how it could happen in real life. Maybe this crew got so overwhelmed and engrossed in what they were doing that they didn't heed warning signs.
 
Cloud Surfer said:
I don't fly 121 and am low-time, but FWIW, I landed at the wrong field once in a CRJ sim with a classmate doing a visual approach. We wanted to land at KSLC, and had the ILS tuned, identified and verified. We failed though. Foolishly enough, we landed at some other airport (can't recall the name) which had an identically numbered runway, and which ALSO happened to have a nearly identical ILS. Both airports were nearly aligned with one another too, so the localizer didn't indicate an error when the frequency was tuned in. We landed on it and then noticed that we landed at the wrong field, doh! It was laughable, but I'm glad that it happened to us in hindsight. If we had just given heed to what we didn't question, we would have caught our gaffing mistake in advance.

Our instruments were telling us that the distance to the airport was 20 miles away, and our glideslope was not functioning at all. Unfortunately since both airports are so closely aligned, the localizer was pegged dead center. We chose to ignore those other indications because the sim in which we were assigned annoyingly had a tendency to behave erratically all too often. That was our first big (and dumb) mistake. Making things worse, we should have noticed before we landed that the airport also looked different from the air. Maybe we could have gone around..
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I blame Joseph Smith.

What were the simulated management and union action(s)? Were you simulated reprimanded or simulated fired?
 
I_Money said:
Am I the only one who thinks these pilots shouldn't be fired? Everyday on every flight I'm sure a mistake is made - most are likely minor and never even realized, while others are more public like this one. In healthcare when we make mistakes people die, but we don't hang the person who made the mistake. If they have a long history of poor care, year maybe, if it was egregious then probably - but good employees can make mistakes but can then be a catalyst and spokesperson about the issue and help improve safety overall. I doubt these were horrendous pilots, probably did what 1000s of pilots did last night, they're just unlucky the cascade of events got them on the news! I certainly don't think it is worthy of having their career ended over -
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This could certainly happen to anyone. Unfortunately, as an old instructor once told me, complacency can/will kill you.

I don't think they should be fired. They should be coached. Possibly put on a probation and that requires some procedures training again.

It's a scary thought that we can spend all this time and money investing in our flying careers and then one minor mistake and cost you your career.
 
MikeD said:
I blame Joseph Smith.

What were the simulated management and union action(s)? Were you simulated reprimanded or simulated fired?
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It didn't really happen in real life, it was just in a CRJ sim covering airline procedures and CRM for college credit. :p It just made a big impact on me when something like what happened to the SW and Atlas crew in real life happened in the sim, so I thought I would share it. It's just odd that something like that would happen to seasoned airline crews.

EDIT: Do airline pilots actually train for landing on the wrong airport?
 
Cloud Surfer said:
It didn't really happen in real life, it was just in a CRJ sim covering airline procedures and CRM for college credit. :p It just made a big impact on me when something like what happened to the SW and Atlas crew in real life happened in the sim, so I thought I would share it. It's just odd that something like that would happen to seasoned airline crews.
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Just wondering, where did you take the crm courses.
 
Funny thing is that many moons ago and i belive it was after DETA landed one of their FLUFFs at KFFT on a mid shift that the FFA made a change in the 7110 that required controllers when clearing AC for a VA at night to point out any airport that was between the aircraft and the one they were landing at.
 
z987k said:
On the 430/530 you can turn any point into a navaid with the obs button. I'd imagine you can do a lot better than that with an FMS.
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Not really. The 430 does a bit better job replicating the outside world on (small) moving map. About the best I can do with my FMS setup is draw a pretty pink line outbound from the runway end... assuming I've got the correct runway loaded up.
 
[/EDIT: Do airline pilots actually train for landing on the wrong airport?
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No, we actually train to land at the correct airport...all the time, every time. Having said that, we are also human, and being human, we make mistakes. Unfortunately, probably a chain of events that allowed this to happen.

I don't know that facts of this incident so I'll wait for the official report on how it happened and try to learn something from someone else's mistake. Having been doing this "aviation" thing for a while now, the one thing that comes to mind is.."There but the grace of God......"
 
A300Capt said:
No, we actually train to land at the correct airport...all the time, every time. Having said that, we are also human, and being human, we make mistakes. Unfortunately, probably a chain of events that allowed this to happen.

I don't know that facts of this incident so I'll wait for the official report on how it happened and try to learn something from someone else's mistake. Having been doing this "aviation" thing for a while now, the one thing that comes to mind is.."There but the grace of God......"
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Do you think that it would help to reduce mishaps of landing at the wrong airport if airlines started to use scenario-based training dealing with that?
 
Why does this keep happening? Because the airlines don't fire the crew when it does and it's treated like a non-event. Policies don't change, crew members don't take the incident to heart and continue on with the norm.

This incident was 40 feet from away from a bunch of possible fatalities. Both the crew members should lose their job.

Let me ask you this, if the airplane went off the runway and killed 18 people, should the crew be fired?

Does it make sense to punish the action or the outcome?
 
jhugz said:
Why does this keep happening? Because the airlines don't fire the crew when it does and it's treated like a non-event. Policies don't change, crew members don't take the incident to heart and continue on with the norm.

This incident was 40 feet from away from a bunch of possible fatalities. Both the crew members should lose their job.

Let me ask you this, if the airplane went off the runway and killed 18 people, should the crew be fired?

Does it make sense to punish the action or the outcome?
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Ever hear of a just safety culture?
 
jhugz said:
Let me ask you this, if the airplane went off the runway and killed 18 people, should the crew be fired?

Does it make sense to punish the action or the outcome?
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Answer these two questions @Seggy that you dodge every time this happens.
 
Acrofox said:
And now they're filming a buzzard. This is super exciting... cameraman with ADD. <3
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It's actually pretty funny. I guess its not good enough to leave it on a tripod pointed at the plane which is just sitting...forever. I wonder if the camera man is under pressure to make stuff "interesting". OH LOOK a truck driving! OMG a bird! If I were him, I would pan out and zoom down for a "selfie". No one's watching anyway.
 
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