a/c flies to the wrong destination?

[zed3]

Anyone know (or admit?!) to the story going round the Maastricht UAC this morning , that a Captain picked up the wrong flightplan and flew to Berlin instead of Brussels ? Seemingly we had a phone call asking if he had landed in Brussels and the caller was politely told that he was still in the air west of Berlin , inbound there !!!
If true , why did nobody notice from the 'welcome on board to Berlin' speech ?

[trainer too 2]

A few years ago there was a similar thing with a DUS (I think) bound NW DC10 ending up in BRU...


:rolleyes:

[zed3]

Yup ...it was a Frankfurt bound NWA that went into Brussels .

[quixeven]

Also, some weeks ago Elton John landed (I suppose with a private bizjet) in Lamezia (LICA) instead of Palermo (LICJ), which is about 155NM far from LICA...

[Dash-7 lover]

Many years ago a 'Captain Birdseye' in his DAN-AIR HS748 landed at the wrong airfield at Belfast Aldergrove. There's an old military airfield not far from the end of the runway at BFS (the name escapes me). Apparently there were several calls to the handling agent for a dispatcher who had difficulty locating the aircraft!! It was a bit misty at the time!! Pax were then coached to the correct airfield. Not sure when it was exactly as I've looked on the internet many times to try a find the AAIB report.

[Eh Hello?]

Langford Lodge for the 748....

[Lost_luggage34]

And then of course there was the Pan- Am 747 (could have been a 707) which landed at Northolt instead of Heathrow many moons ago.

I believe they had to strip out the seats to reduce the weight in order for it to take off again. A40 was closed as a precaution.

[Milt]

Dulles/Dallas

Was enroute Oz to Washington DC with family back in 69. Had never heard of Dulles.

On the climb out of San Francisco Captain came up on PA to advise pax to settle down for the x hours to Dulles. I heard it as Dallas and exclaimed that we were on the wrong flight.

Feverish pressing of a call button produced a hostie who confirmed we were going to Darlus and not to worry.

Now very worried I told the family that they would be seeing Dallas sooner than expected but now concerned that luggage had gone to Washington.

Careful perusal of a route map eventually created a more relaxed situation much to family's amusement.

[rotornut]

WRONG WAY CORRIGAN • Accidental Aviator

On July 17, 1938, Douglas Corrigan filed a flight plan for California and took off from a Brooklyn airfield in a tiny single-engine plane. 29 hours later he arrived in Ireland, claiming his compasses had failed. Although Corrigan never quite admitted it, his 'mistake' was surely a ruse to circumvent aviation authorities who had turned down his request to make a trans-Atlantic flight. Corrigan's stunt caught the public fancy and he was given a hero's welcome on his return to New York.

[seacue]

About 5 years ago my seat-mates on a SJU-IAD flight were a Puerto Rican couple. He owned a light twin, but took commercial for long flights.

He had a story (then recent) of a UA flight, chartered by a cruise company, which landed at Isla Verde instead of SJU. One passes over Isla Verde a few miles before SJU on the normal approach.

The 757 landed safely, but the runway was too short to take off with any load.

Things were worse since there were no stairs at Isla Verde tall enough to reach a 757 ... and it was traffic rush hour so it took a long time to drive stairs over from SJU.

[egnxema]

Not the carriers fault but similarly disorientating for the pax....

... an inexperienced travel agent booked a flight for a Couple to Sydney. Not a bad fare...approx £750 with Air Canada - which for most agents would surely ring an alarm bell.

Anyway the couple like the price, bought the ticket and after their connection in Canada arrived in Sydney.......Nova Scotia! :uhoh:

YQY = Sydney Canada
SYD - Sydney Australia

[WHBM]

egnxema:

We're getting away a little from the original topic (maybe because no one has bitten with the details) but in the situation you describe the couple had apparently booked on the web, where such gross blunders are by no means unknown. Remember it happening at the time - what tourist industry there is in Sydney NS, right up to the mayor, all rallied round and some publicity was generated.

Air Canada is no stranger to web booking cockups especially at Toronto where they have flights to both London, UK and London, Ontario, let alone also to both Sydney NS and Sydney NSW (which when expressed that way you can see gives additional scope for confusion).

BTW there was a German pax on a charter Frankfurt - Bangor Me. - San Francisco who didn't realise the intermediate fuel and customs stop on the US East Coast was not the final destination, left the airport with his luggage, took a taxi to "Ze Holiday Inn" (one in every town), checked in somehow and then asked the reception where the cable cars were !

[Dee747]

Many years ago a 'Captain Birdseye' in his DAN-AIR HS748 landed at the wrong airfield at Belfast Aldergrove. There's an old military airfield not far from the end of the runway at BFS (the name escapes me). Apparently there were several calls to the handling agent for a dispatcher who had difficulty locating the aircraft!! It was a bit misty at the time!! Pax were then coached to the correct airfield. Not sure when it was exactly as I've looked on the internet many times to try a find the AAIB report.


Similar thing happened at Langford Lodge a few years earlier with a Spantax or Aviaco charter from the Med. Everything needed stripped out to get it back the few miles to Aldergrove (both have main runways on the same heading 07/25 and are only about 4-5 miles apart). I believe the crew were frantically looking around for their stand and 'Follow Me' and couldn't understand why nothing was arriving with them. Even more frustrating was that they couldn't find a terminal building either !!

[whatunion]

u wont find the dan air incident on a aib because there was no damage (i thought it was nutts corner he landed at)

the incident at northolt was an air india constellation, 747 drivers arnt that stupid.
but just in case the gasometers near northolt and hrwo have arrows on them with hrow and nholt and an arrow on them!!

chap was cleared to land at ema and landed od 24 at bham
aztec cleared to land at ema landed at wymeswold
aer ligus landed at filton instead of bristol
during the war a bomber landed in the canal beside hawarden thinking it was the runway
chap i worked for spent 10 minutes talking to edinburgh received landing clearnace and touched down at glasgow.
fairflight heron short of fuel landed with pax at fraserborough instaed of aberdeen(some paxs treated for shock!)

jolly green giant hcopter made approach to disued airfield instead of silverstone for display!

lancaster landed in a field during war and thinking it was germany left it but set fire to it, after climbing over a hedge found out they were in norfolk.
usaf display jet pilot did a run and break over the runway at the barton air display but unfortuanately had just suprised controllers and pilots at manchester international.
it just keeps happening

[thetexpat]

Northolt also hosted a PANAM B707! Mk.I PA eyeball confused the then existing gasometers west of the airfield for a similar one west of Heathrow! :ok:

[Skylion]

Thats right, Pan Am into Northolt was 707, not 747.
Going much further back, BOAC landed Constellation at Nairobi West ( now Wilson) instead of Eastleigh ( which was the international airport pre the existing one at Embakasi). Runways were on similar heading and aircraft broke cloud to see a runway in front of it, so down he went. It repositioned later without passengers. A good account appears in Peter J Davis book "East African-An Airline Story".

[Milt]

Where Am I

Many times during WW2, US Army aircraft landed at airfields around Australia so that the crews could ask the question
"Where am I?'

[corsair]

I met 'wrong way' Corrigan in the eighties. He maintained to the end he had made a mistake. He had the right idea. Why spoil a good story? He flew into Baldonnel one last time in an Aer Lingus shed. This time on purpose.

Speaking of Baldonnel, recently during the fun and games surrounding the delivery of several new PC9's to the Irish Air Corps. Staff in the tower of the nearby tower of the GA field at Weston were surprised to see a grey painted 'Mustang' like aircraft screaming down the runway at nought feet. The Swiss delivery pilot mistook it for the military base.

On the other hand Baldonnel often plays host to confused British GA pilots looking for Weston. One attempted to land during a big military parade there recently. Luckily the Air Corps doesn't have patriot missiles!

[Teddy Robinson]

Working in the tower at Leavesden ( before it was turned into a housing estate/ film set) we had an N reg single engine ask for joining instructions and a few moments later he called finals.

Time passed ... no aircraft ... then we got a very crackly request for taxi instructions ..... followed by a phone call from Denham ...
" er I think we have one of yours here" :) :)

[Heatseeker]

There was an American military aircraft during WW2 that was to fly from Cairns, in north Queensland, to Port Moresby - due north- in New Guinea. "How do I get there ?" asks the driver. "Mate, just turn left and follow the coast" says the old digger. So, the intrepid birdman does just that, followed the coast - around the pointy bit at the top right of Australia and still following the coast, all the way down into the Gulf of Carpentaria until he ran out of fuel. Rumour is that 50 years later somebody finally found him.

Sad really.

Heat.

[uy707]

In 1985, an Air Charter International 727-200 bound to Eilat from Orly. The tri-holer ended up at opposite located Aqaba/Jordan. Everybody was soon back to reality as a host of armored vehicle and jeeps surrounded the 727 !
Alain

[uy707]

Another one pretty famous.
Story took place at ORY. An Egyptair 747-300 was arriving from NYC. In fact before finally landing to ORY, the 747 carried out an involuntary touch and go at Bretigny, an airforce base nearby !
Suddenly aware of his mistake when the aircraft had touched down, the captain put on the throttles to get airborne again.
Somebody told me he later changed his name and resorted to some plastic surgery to keep flying.
Alain

[zed3]

Okay guys ..... but what about the original post ? er umm .

[woodpecker]

25th October 1960 was the date of the Pan Am excursion into Northolt. I watched it from the school playground. God am I that old!

Sat P3 on a Trident a few years later when the two senior chaps ahead of me tried to do the same. Didn't even get offered a beer in the Vanguard Club afterwards for my "prompt".

Loved the exchange between Belfast ATC and an Aviaco who was complaining about being left very high on radar positioning to 07. He suggested he was "going visual" and might just be able to get in without an orbit. Having succeded, and after landing, asked for taxy instructions. The controller suggested that he could help if he was on the ground at Aldergrove and not at Langford Lodge!

[Avman]

Yep, all the old stories which have already been done to death on PPRuNe come out yet again, but not a peep on the latest one which prompted this thread. Stick to the subject people!

[ou Trek dronkie]

Avman, Sorry to say, you are a bore.

For the record, since we are reminiscing, some of us anyway, I remember, yonks ago in RAFG. We were detached to Wildenrath while our runway was being fixed.

On the way in to Wildenrath one lovely summer evening, we heard the following conversation :

“Mission xxx, you are cleared to land” (Brüggen)

“Cleared to land, xxx”

A p a u s e.

xxx then proceeds to do a roller on the E/W runway at Wilders (same direction as Brüggen, more or less) and calls “Rolling, proceeding to Brüggen”.

Then we heard :

“We saw, you, we know who you are and we know where you are going, but don’t worry, we won’t tell if you won’t”. (Wildenrath, who always had an open direct line to Brüggen).

I still find it amusing.

Bless you Thumper.

[Notso Fantastic]

As we've drifted from inadvertently flying to the wrong destination to landing at the wrong airfield (there is a subtle difference), I can recall seeing in the 70s a JAL DC-8 on Juhu airfield (very short runway) just 4 or so miles from Bombay airfield. Damn good achievement to stop. BOAC had a VC10 land at the similarly laid out runway at Sharjah instead of Dubai (about 10 miles). In history, BOAC put a Stratocruiser into the wrong runway on Montreal Island. People have landed at the wrong airfield in Nairobi and more places than I would care to list here.

Whilst ILSs have virtually put paid to such incidents, with the main navaids of old (NDB and later VOR approaches), it was a lot easier to put down on the wrong airfield in poor visibility. Tired pilots, poor weather, primitive navaids- I won't cast the first stone!

[WHBM]

Regarding the Heathrow/Northolt mixups, I noticed the "LHR" and the arrow on the Southall gasholder only a couple of days ago, it's right alongside the Paddington railway. It appeared freshly painted.

But that's not on track for 27L/27R at all. It is on the 23 approach (is that where the Pan Am was heading) but way to the south of an approach to Northolt.

[davina]

Quote expat"Northolt also hosted a PANAM B707! Mk.I PA eyeball confused the then existing gasometers west of the airfield for a similar one west of Heathrow!"

Are those the same gasometers near North Sheen (now sainsbury's) where a flight inbound from Bombay lowered its undercarriage and delivered its stow-away? Ouch !

[Avman]

:zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :yuk: :mad:

With love

Very bored Avman!