6 months before I arrived at my first posting as a ground eng at Northolt a Panam 707 landed at Northolt mystifying Heathrow tower when the pilot announced he had landed and requested taxi instructions!
Now far be it for me to Poo poo this story as fantasy but the story has been repeated over a number of years from different sources.
Apparently a lot of aircraft when vectoring in from the north visually to Heathrow use to use the gasometer towers of Harrow and Northolt (I think long time ago) to line theirs selves up.
Well this said aviator did line himself up perfectly runway 25 and promptly called in for a short stop, very short stop, with trips to colourful metaphors and back!
End shot was the aircraft had to be de-fuelled to a minimum and all the passengers and baggage removed so the aircraft could depart to the correct airfield.
So landing on the wrong runway isn’t so difficult at all!
It happened recently in Ireland, good job the local grunts had moved out they might have shot at it thinking it was an intruder!
Professionally it shouldn’t happen but it does!
We shouldn’t witch hunt but should learn and understand these slips in decision making in the hope of preventing further incidents or even worse fatalities as a result!
While the soggy seat to stick interface exists it will happen!
And No Mr Micro Chip isn’t infallible either!
