Bungling pilot lands RAF chief in wrong place

[Duncan D'Sorderlee]

Bungling pilot lands RAF chief in wrong place - mirror.co.uk (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/06/14/bungling-pilot-lands-raf-chief-in-wrong-place-115875-23199860/)

Duncs:ok:

[Willard Whyte]

Sir Simon – a former jet pilot with a geography degree – was dropped off in time to present a cup to the local Air Training Corps yesterday. He said of pitching up at the wrong ground: “It was probably my fault”.



I'd love to know more about the CRM aspects...

[Runaway Gun]

Sir Simon – a former jet pilot with a geography degree – was dropped off in time to present a cup to the local Air Training Corps yesterday. He said of pitching up at the wrong ground: “It was probably my fault”.

Buy THAT man a beer :ok:

[teeteringhead]

a former jet pilot with a geography degree ... CinC's a Nav/WSO the last time I looked .....

...... does that make the story better or worse!! ;)

[Fareastdriver]

CinC's a Nav

That explains it.

[Willard Whyte]

Ahh, Fast Jet Nav

That certainly does explain it...

Or did he have a go at flying?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Air_Marshal_Simon_Bryant_at_Randolph_AFB.jpg/800px-Air_Marshal_Simon_Bryant_at_Randolph_AFB.jpg

[NutLoose]

Does he moonlight, between jobs? :}


http://members.shaw.ca/ecoats/Marlboroman.jpg

[DX Wombat]

A quote from a Project Propeller 2010 pilot about his trip with two veterans:- "I had the Squadron Leader pilot in the RH seat flying us to the venue and the Sergeant Navigator in the back telling him where to go." :E :D

[FODPlod]

Air Chief Marshal Sir Simon Bryant – the force’s second most senior officer who is in charge of attacks in Libya and Afghanistan – should have been at a sports ground about a mile away for a presentation... Sir Simon – a former jet pilot with a geography degree – was dropped off in time to present a cup to the local Air Training Corps yesterday. He said of pitching up at the wrong ground: “It was probably my fault”.Good on him for coming clean but perhaps he should have gone to Specsavers. What's that old chestnut about officers and maps?

At least he's no longer designating ground targets (he isn't, is he?).

[bobward]

Ok, so you won't admit it...
There was an article in this pillar of accuacy moaning about the RAF. It was illustrated with a picture of a Belgian (?) A109......... :ugh::ugh:

[Fareastdriver]

Years and years ago there used to be an annual golf session between Bristow Helicopters (Aberdeen) and British Petroleum (Exploration & Production). The deal was that a golf course would be selected and they would use one of BP's sole use S61s to fly there and back with the tab for the aircraft being picked up by BP.

The day came and two of the Bristow golfers who were training captains were going to crew the aircraft. For those unfamiliar with civil descriptions a training captain is a QHI and Categorisation Trapper rolled into one. The golf course selected was one in Perth, about 45 mins down the road and off they went.

Perth was under thick fog and eight/eight stratus; something that anybody who had bothered to get the TAFs would have known about.

They returned to Aberdeen and there was frantic activity whilst they telephoned golf courses in the opposite direction to arrange a booking. They did and again they loaded up and, having assessed that the weather was fine, zoomed off to a golf course in Nairn.

They found the course, found the clubhouse and in a great fog of grass cuttings arrived in the middle of the clubs Annual Championship Day.

Wrong golf course.

[Laarbruch72]

It was illustrated with a picture of a Belgian (?) A109.........

Close. It was the Irish Aer Corps:

[FODPlod]

Instead of exploiting the continuous requirement for routine NAVEXs, I'm sure senior officers with overfilled diaries would be much more gainfully employed sitting in cars all day while their staffs and those on the battlefield, VIP visitors, subordinate units, those going on/returning from tours, parliamentary committee members, etc., twiddle their thumbs waiting for their return. :*

[brakedwell]

Is map reading part of a Geography Degree? :E:E

[Vortex81]

... CinC's a Nav/WSO the last time I looked .....

Yep, when I met him last, he had one nav wing on his jumper.

[Warmtoast]

A long time ago when I was on 99 Sqn (Britannias) we were tasked to support an army exercise moving troops to Luqa, Malta, about four Britannias were used for the move ISTR

Three Brits made it to Luqa sucessfully, but the third captained by 99's c/o of the day landed for some unknown reason at the nearby RN airfield at Hal Far.
It was only when the c/o asked after landing for taxi directions (on the Luqa ATC frequency), that Luqa asked for his whereabouts on the airfield as they couldn't see him!

I can't recall we ever got a satisfactory explanation of the errror.

[Wrathmonk]

... CinC's a Nav/WSO the last time I looked .....

...... does that make the story better or worse!!

In his defence he was an AD nav so probably hasn't seen or used a map for 30+ years. ;)








Seeks cover awaiting the inevitable .....

[TheWizard]

Close. It was the Irish Aer Corps:


Not even close. It was Belgian.

[soddim]

Maybe we need a Laser Guided Bryant.

[teeteringhead]

Good grief Jenkins - a geography degree - I'm impressed.

One has known of people try to land on the DTG and not the grid ref. And there were a couple of Training Areas in Germany that were EXACTLY 100 kms apart, so if the pongoes forgot the prefix letters........:{

And furthermore Jenkins, you must remember Delta and Zulu timing c*ck*ups - so much more satisfying than Alpha and Zulu - to arrive at breakfast when expected for lunch!

[racedo]

Ah he appears to be reading from the GW Bush school of geography after all Osama killed Americans on 9/11 (he was a Saudi) as were most of the hijackers, Saudis recognised Taliban as legitimate Govt as did UAE and Pakistan and good old Georgie boy attacked Iraq.

[Guzlin Adnams]

I recall several years ago watching an RC135 making an approach to Honington when their runway was still maintained. The ILS was being checked that day by a Blue King Air and runway lights were on. I noticed said 135 on short finals and then applying rather a lot of power to line up on Mildenhall. I suppose it was a case of unfamiliarity, the guy not knowing tha Honington had to all intents and purposes closed for flying with the Reg present and it is slightly near to Mildy.

[Fareastdriver]

Royal Air Changi used to collect Boeing 707s destined for Paya Lebar, then Singapore's international airport. IIRC Lufthansa were the main culprits.

[Fortissimo]

I hear that 'Bungling pilot' landed exactly where he planned to, and that the only person in the wrong place was the driver! But then that wouldn't have been such a good story, so it wouldn't have been published, and we would have been denied the opportunity of a bit more sniping. I think I prefer the journo's version, it's funnier than the facts.

[obnoxio f*ckwit]

We were en route to pick up GOC of whichever MNB we were in Kosovo, when we were passed a new pick up grid, which was helpfully passed in ramrod. We decoded the grid and set off for new pick up point. As there was nothing but Kosovan peasants at the new grid, we thought we should check the grid, you guessed it, we had started with 1 instead of 0 (or was it the other way round) - doh. Correct new grid was only about 200m from original, which is where we arrived 15 mins late to find a rather peed off Brigadier.

[Wensleydale]

ISTR an AOCs formal inspection day at Lossie in the early eighties. At that time there were Units within 4 different groups represented at the Stn (please don't ask me to remember the actual groups, but they were there for the Buccaneer, the Shackleton, the SAR helicopter flight and the Jaguar OCU). To save time and effort, all AOCs would visit on the same day - it was planned that they all should arrive within a few minutes of each other by air and be taxied to the appropriate dispearsal for their charges.

As you have probably guessed, someone in ATC got the wrong callsign to the wrong dispearsal leading to an embarrassing arrival at the wrong parade and HS 125s taxying all over the airfield to get to the right spot. I imagine that it was a fun debrief....:*:O

[Exascot]

Just before the ground war during Operation Granby I had orders to pick up the then Lieutenant-General Sir Peter de la Billiere and entourage from Riyadh King Khalid International Airport. I had great difficulty getting permission to land from the American controllers who said I did not have authority to land. After holding off for half an hour I managed to persuade them to give clearance. We closed down at the Royal Pavilion. An American Colonel rushed onto the flight deck and asked what we were doing there our passengers were at Riyadh Air Base. I could see myself spending the rest of the war sweeping hangars out back at Brize. A very panicky check of the op order by my nav confirmed that we were where we were instructed to go….phew. Our passengers were in the wrong place, or we had been given incorrect instructions, never found out which, but probably the latter. The Colonel then couldn’t understand why we thought it was all very funny. I asked how long it would take to file a flight plan to move down the road or how long it would take them to drive to us. They drove to us. When they arrived I told the loadmaster to just chuck them on board and we would worry about the manifest when airborne. Half were in civvies half were in uniform but none looked like Saddam so I thought it would be OK. It was a bit embarrassing to go around asking for names so the manifest was compiled once they had fallen asleep by reading the names off tags on briefcases. :cool:

[foldingwings]

Back in the mid 90s we, the old and bold, used to pre-prepare a Nordhorn Strike Target map on the colour photocopier for our new squadron arrivals to reduce the pressure on them for their first trip to the range in their Strike qualification work-up! Of course, anybody who has been to the range knows just how few features there were/are on a heading of 161 from 'the church' past the 'old lady's house' and the 'crow's foot' to the Strike Target, so you needed all the help you could get in the planning stages!!

So, by clever use of 2 maps and by superimposing an autobahn just to the left of track and then photocopying the result we dispatched the new crew off to the range with every advantage and bursting with confidence:}!!!!

Great days with no fun police in sight!

Foldie :ok:

[chinook240]

we would have been denied the opportunity of a bit more sniping

Funny, I don't see too much sniping on here, just a bunch of guys who've had a similar experience and a load of sympathy.

[BEagle]

Because Ops / Movs people found the pronunciation of 'Incirlik' all too difficult, they would insist on referring to it as 'Adana' - and using the IATA code 'ADA'....:rolleyes:

So, somewhat predictably, one fine day one of HM's scruffy trash haulers did indeed land at 'Adana' - but at Adana (Sakirpasa - LTAF) rather than Adana (Incirlik - LTAG) where it was expected....:\

And wasn't rather a senior officer one of the operating crew..:suspect:

[ACW599]

There have been several instances of aircraft approaching and even landing at St Athan instead of Cardiff Airport, up to and including a B747 if I recall correctly. And didn't a B707 once land at Northolt instead of LHR?

[Exascot]

And didn't a B707 once land at Northolt instead of LHR?

Yes indeed it was 25/10/60 a Pan Am Boeing 707. As I understand they had to strip it down to a shell with minimum fuel to get it out again and across to LHR where it should have been. After that they painted at huge 'NO' on the gasometer on the approach to westerly runway to Northolt and a hugh 'LH' on the gasometer on the approach to LHR. Actually thinking about it even if an American crew were supposed to be landing at Northolt, faced with a big 'NO' may divert anyway :=

Boeing 707-321, N725PA, Pan American World Airways (PA / PAA) (http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1001607)

Actually even worse than landing at the wrong airfield the Army, who constructed Northolt in 1915, put the airfield in the wrong place. Well they would wouldn't they. No Royal Air Force then :) They took aerial surveys and had decided to put the airfield to the north of the railway line. To the south is a very swampy area where in fact during the great plague they used to 'bring out the dead' and dump the bodies there where they just sunk. The surveyers got the map upside down and built the strip to the south - where of course it remains to this day. This is one of the reasons that Northolt still suffers from very localised early morning fog in the winter.

[99 Change Hands]

And then there was the GR1 formation at Laarbruch who planned a SAP against a very tempting-looking isolated barracks on the 50-thou map, only to find the area empty when they got there. It was actually a capital 'L' in the county name.

[NutLoose]

Seem to remember several Teeny Weeny Airways helicopters landing at Lasham instead of Odious..... as well as Dan Dare airliners trying to land at Odious, ohh and then there was Gary Newman the pop star, who set off around the world on his dream flight, to be arrested when he managed to land at Odious, instead of Lasham, not a great start LOL

[old-timer]

:uhoh:
Hope they didn't damage the pitch - lucky the game was called off - HOWZAT ! - Chinook for 6 ! :=

maybeTime to invest in Tom-Toms :rolleyes:

such is life though , worst things happen at sea :yuk: & any Pilot who says he's never got it wrong isn't telling the truth
Glad no one was hurt, just the Pilots pride & good for him for coming clean :D

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I remember Sir Simon from Leeming.
He is an AD nav. The state of the F3 radar at the time meant that the navs spent 90%+ of their time trying to get some sense out of it. The pilots used to do most of the actual nav, especially low level.
..or if we're not being kind to AD navs; on my first crew solo my nav took precisely 2 mins 15 seconds at LL before he took me smack over a red dot. Always had a self-planned map after that.

My favourite from GW1. C5 Galaxy lands at Thumrait. Keen RAF mover has the unload 25% complete before the USAF pilot strolls up to him and says "Geez, I thought Bahrain was nearer the coast". "It probably is....Put it all back on, lads!"

[racedo]

http://www.pprune.org/jet-blast/178289-easyjet-landed-wrong-airport.html

Next stop Londonderry; oops - make that Ballykelly Air Field (http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?76922-Next-stop-Londonderry-oops-make-that-Ballykelly-Air-Field)

Easily done

[BEagle]

But since Mikey-the-Pikey's unfortunate passengers are quite used to landing at tatty, run down airstrips in the middle of nowhere masquerading as 'airports', I doubt whether anyone in the back noticed that Ballykelly wasn't the intended aerodrome of arrival.

One of the best people-tube wrong airport cock-ups of recent times was the North West DC10 which landed at Brussels thinking it was Frankfurt. The passengers had seen the wrong destination on their seat back flight following maps (not an option on Ryanair's cheap and nasty seats, of course) and had alerted the trolley tarts, but the latter refused to contact the flight crew because of 'sterile cockpit' rules below FL100.....:( The incident was later blamed on Air Traffic, would you believe!

[strake]

Whilst not landings, a couple of "near misses" spring to mind. Early eighties, a Jaguar (?) cleared fast into Duxford for a display somewhat startled a couple of old coves in Tiger Moths as they pootled round the circuit at Cambridge. Then of course, it only a few years ago that the cousins kindly agreed to fly one of their nice B52's all the way from Swampsville AZ to Farnborough to display the power projection capability of Georgie B, only to rattle the windows of the good people of Blackbushe instead.

[1.3VStall]

And many years ago, whilst I was towing out a glider to the launch point at Lasham a Buccaneer appeared at warp snot at not a lot of feet. After a high "g" 270 degree turn it fecked off to Odiham.

Fortunately we weren't winch launching at the time. Quite impressive though!

[DITYIWAHP]

One shouldn't forget the (relatively) recent Typhoon flypast at Coningsby :E.

[NutLoose]

Early eighties, a Jaguar (?) cleared fast into Duxford for a display

Nope, Jags didn't do fast.......:E

[just another jocky]

I understand that they landed where they were told to land.

I suspect the ADC got a bit of a wigging for passing the wrong coordinates. :\

[BEagle]

strake, that B-52 story is an urban myth.

They'd been vectored around the sky by the Flying Prevention Branch for some reason, then were offered an impossibly hard turn to line up for their display, so wisely refused and departed the scene!

Aerodrome mis-idents are amusing and an endless opportunity for banter - provided no-one gets hurt. As someone who once gave Withybush an impromptu 450KIAS flypast in one of HM's Hunters having mis-ID'd the IP for Brawdy, I can but sympathise.

Twiddling my thumbs as Duty Pilot at Sunny Scampton once, I was somewhat surprised to see a Jet Provost appear from the north-west at very low level, then fly a split-ar$e turn overhead the nuclear bomb store before disappearing whence it came. No-one else in the tower was looking out of the window :rolleyes: but there was only one unit which flew JP5s with tip tanks.....and it trained navigators!

A quiet call to Finningley followed! It seems they'd mistaken Scampton for the disused aerodrome at Blyton, some miles to the north......:uhoh:

[225Turbo]

I was at the event, and it caused much amusement to the hundreds of parents and local dignataries that saw the A109 do a flypast over the sqn headquarters, only for it to do another, and another! The weather was truly awful and we had staff awaiting the helicopter at the intended landing site to ferry him across town to the sqn. All ended very well.

There are two sites, both belong to the same company and he chose to land at the wrong one, 50-50 chance I suppose!:D

[Fareastdriver]

Years and years ago there was military exercise area on the northwest peninsular of the New Territories of Hong Kong. It was within sight of a place called Nantou in the Peoples Republic of China and based there was an INT unit that would evesdrop on the radio traffic as the Britmil did their stuff. When they had an exercise with similar callsigns and traffic to a previous exercise they would play tape recordings of the previous ones to confuse everybody; and it usually worked.
One day there was a lot of traffic that was normal when a new operation was starting up. What was different was four Wessexs hoving into view and landing 400 metres up the road. They discharged loads of blokes with green berets and turned out to sea.

Wrong country.

A Hong Kong Navy Auxiliary boat that was stationed in the middle of Shenzhen Bay to deter IIs(illegal immigrants) had seen this and had got on with various blowers to inform the Admiralty. With unusual speed the helicopters were informed and they about turned and picked up the green berets, who were by now lemmings flocking onto their aircraft, and flew out to sea again.

There had been a fracas at the British Embassy in Beijing when the police had stood aside whilst the Red Guards had invaded the embassy. It was quite nasty, with them stripping the secretaries etc etc. The Chinese owed the UK one so this incident was quietly brushed under the carpet.

[pulse1]

Back in the 70's, the RAF decided to give Flight Refuelling Ltd a fly past to thank them for their contribution to several record breaking flights. We were allowed to finish early for lunch so that we could line the river bank. Bang on time, there was a Victor tanker with 2 Lightnings in refuelling mode........... 4 miles away. This was particularly galling as offers of a lead in by a company test pilot in a Meteor had been rejected by the RAF.

The embarrassment was further embellished when, a few months later, the FAA gave a similar show of gratitude after their victory in the race from the Post Office Tower to the Empire State building. After a sedate flypast with Vixens and Phantoms, each aircraft returned as a singleton and could not have got any closer to the factory. From the slight hill to the south of the factory, I swear that I looked down on a Phantom.

[ShyTorque]

strake, that B-52 story is an urban myth.
They'd been vectored around the sky by the Flying Prevention Branch for some reason, then were offered an impossibly hard turn to line up for their display, so wisely refused and departed the scene!

Really? From where I stood, further south, it certainly looked like a low level fly-by. All we could see was the top of the tail fin over the forest just south of the airfield.

[strake]

strake, that B-52 story is an urban myth.

That's a shame....however, I shan't let it get in the way of me repeating the story to uppity ex-colonials during my annual visit to Okeechobee airport. :p

[Wander00]

Then there was the LIghtning booked to do a flypast at Neatishead for a retiring OC Ops, the only FC Branch Officer wg cdr as I recall (John.....). Very quiet at Neatishead as pilot called he was pulling up between the masts - at Bacton gas terminal!