tafkaf incident

[bogbeagle]

Last Saturday, the 18th of Feb, a private pilot mis-identified his destination airfield and landed his PA-28 at Doncaster. He had thought that he was landing at Gamston, which is about 14 miles south of Doncaster. In consequence, he was talking to Gamston Radio.

He landed on Doncaster's runway 02; the runway in use was 20. I understand that the runway was occupied by a plane-load of holiday-makers at the time, lined up and awaiting departure clearance. I know the pilot concerned and can tell you all that he is mortified.

As you can imagine, the MORs are flying thick and fast.

But, my questions to you guys are:

1.....have you experienced similar incidents in your careers?

2.....do you have any idea of the likely consequences for the pilot in question?

Yes, yes, he probably should be crucified, but what is the probable realistic outcome of his actions?

Bogbeagle

[topdrop]

Cessna single departing Cairns from GA (western side). Duty RWY15.
Pilot is cleared for takeoff, make left turn. Taxies onto runway turns left and takes off into the teeth of an arriving B737. Pilot does not hear any calls to stop takeoff etc. He did get a good look at the belly of a B737 going round.:\

[jabberwok]

Birmingham 1969. Dutch twin inbound from Amsterdam late at night, non airways. Calls up for inbound clearance. Comms perfectly normal up to him reporting field in sight. Asked to report base leg but this never came. Several calls later and just getting to the very worried stage when the phone rings..

"Hello Brum, East Midlands here. I think we have one of your aircraft." :hmm:

[Legs11]

similar problems at Cranfield with aircraft reporting joining the circuit, but nowhere to be seen, then reporting on final, still nowhere to be seen. Eventually after a number of searching questions, pilot realises mistake and admits to being on final at Bedford Thurleigh (dis-used)

[rej]

As a controller, it has hapened to me at least three times that I can remember.

Circa 1990 a KC135 on approach to rwy 30 at Alconbury, actually lined up to rwy 27 at Wyton. The ac broke off the approach at about 1nm quick left turn over the SE part of the airfield and then a quick right turn onto final approach rwy 30 at Alconbury.


Second and third times occurred in more recent years when 2 separate GA ac mis-idented a large mil base south of a prominent geographical feature for a mid-sized ex-mil airfield to the north of said prominent geographical feature. Both ac broke of the approach on finals and with no RT transmissions departed to land where they should have.

I expect that it is a lot more common that we might think.

[Cobalt]

It has happend to me - as in I landed "wrong way" once...

Situation: Juist (Germany), Runway 08-26, winds were light and variable.

I call the field for joining, get "runway mumble mumble mumble eight", read back "will join downwind 08", then join downwind & call "downwind 08", "base 08", "final 08 for landing", each time with no reply, but hey, it's AFIS only, and the bloke probably went to the loo (happens all the time, right?)

Rolling out and leaving the runway at mid-point, another aircraft lines up runway 26 and takes off. :eek:

Turns out, I had the wrong frequency (or did the fields share the frequency at the time? Don't remember exactly) and initially talked to a nearby airfield with runway 10-28, with 28 active (Norderney?), and misheard their reply... no idea why they did not set me straight on my circuit calls, but maybe I was out of range & they never heard me.

Lesson leant: When getting an unclear reply, ALWAYS ask "say again", even if you think you understood it, you are really only assuming.:ugh:

What happened? AFISO & other pilot got a few rounds out of this one...

C.

[Regular Cappuccino]

similar problems at Cranfield ... admits to being on final at Bedford Thurleigh (dis-used)

Or (in my time there) at Luton
RC

[Regular Cappuccino]

And some other mis-idents by the 'big boys' -

TU134 base leg for ILS 27 at EMA in the 1980s, with about 12 miles to go, reported field in sight. Cleared for a visual, and then to the radar controller's horror, Alt starts winding off like mad on the Mode C. It was making a dirty dive for Wymeswold disused. Told in no uncertain terms to 'Go Around', which it did - roared up to 2500ft, reported the real field in sight, which was by now about 3 miles dead ahead - couldn't quite get the height off, so went around again, and did a tight left hand circuit to land - so tight, we had a plan view of the 134 going round the airfield boundary, pax hanging sideways in their straps!

And we won't go into the Pan Am 707 at Northolt....

Biggest error I heard of though, was from a colleague in Bahrain in the 1980's again (I think).
A Korean 747, visual with rwy 30 from about 30 miles out, transferred to Tower who told it to report final. After a while, the tower controller rang the Centre downstairs and said 'Where's this Korean? He's reported final and I cleared him to land, but I can't see him'.
Area man looks at his radar - strangled gasp, jumps in on tower frequency, yells at the Korean to 'Go Around'.
It had mistaken the parallel sets of lights on Sitra Jetty for the runway. Sitra Jetty was 10 or so miles to the south, and was the oil tanker terminal!
Pilot responded 'Negative, we have runway in sight' Several frantic exchanges of Negative, that's not the runway, go around' 'negative, we have runway in sight' 'negative...' etc.
Eventually, at about 300ft or so above the sea, the lights in front of the 747 finally resolve themselves into a jetty and a couple of tankers. Penny drops. 'AHHH! Going Around!'
747 roars over jetty, tankers, & a major hotel where the (then) Ruler was holding a big shindig, and thunders across the rest of the Island, low level on TOGA. S****T hits fan big time!
Glad I'd left by then...!
Just thought I'd share that with you.:}
RC

[vintage ATCO]

We sometimes use to get people mis-identing Luton and Hatfield, Bristol Britannia, BAC1-11, Nord Noratlas . . . Not sure if anyone actually achieved touchdown :D

On one occasion a foreign military twin turboprop landed at Luton - we weren't expecting it. When on the ground the pilot said 'Say, this isn't Northolt, is it?' :D :D :D

But the best has to be the PA28 that joined the circuit non-radio, landed, taxied in and parked next to a B737 on the apron. The three young ladies on board thought they were at the PFA Rally at Cranfield . . . . :E

[Megamoto]

Early 80s Pa28 lands at St Athan. On the disused.... over the barriers. He thought it was Cardiff. We made him pay the landing fees though.

Mid 90s a 707, out of Africa, landing at night at Manston lined up on the Thanet Way.... It's about 2-3 miles north of the rwy. Same sort of deal as the Korean above.

Do you ever get days when you wish you had been a milkman or a postie?

[BALIX]

Dan Air 748 landed at Langford Lodge rather than Aldergrove back in the eighties.

And there was that Northwest DC-10 that landed at Brussels instead of Frankfurt a few years back. Now those airports are many miles apart...

[Lon More]

And there was that Northwest DC-10 that landed at Brussels instead of Frankfurt a few years back. Now those airports are many miles apart... I believe that was a problem of mind -set by the crew as they normally operated to Brussel.Though why, assuming flight plan details were correct, nobody questioned the early descent
I remember an Iberian flightwhen we received the wrong callsign on the estimate from France. The flight was to Copenhagen but the callsign they passed was for one to Amsterdam and very similar. The Pilot didn't query his descent and was in fact being vectored to the ILS before he mentioned the fact that he was heading to the wrong airfield.
Got a bit worried a couple of years ago on a KLM flight to Detroit when the map scale in the cabin started to change to show an approach to Toronto. Happily only the wrong map had been loaded.