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Old 12th Mar 2010, 20:08
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Another know it all Biggles who left a trail of chaos
A "these guys are dumb around here - If I would have lived here I would have been a brain surgeon by now" guy training with me was on his QXC to some small airfield. Something like 15 miles out he spotted a runway and headed for it. He duly self-announced himself on the small airfield CTAF frequency, made a nice landing, vacated the runway and only then noticed the control tower and some other infrastructure/features that should not be there. Plus a runway that wasn't properly aligned with the charts.

Panicked, he turned the aircraft around, entered the runway without looking and took off again. To this day I don't know if the story about the 737 on final having to go around because of him is true or not. But he did land on a major international airport instead of a sleepy uncontrolled municipal airport. And took off from an active runway without permission.

When he contacted Approach for flight following, instead of an acknowledgement, he got the "Ah, there you are Sonny. You've got pen and paper there? Because I'm going to give you a telephone number that I want you to call as soon as you've landed."

I finished my training course before he did so I don't know if he's now flying 737s or not. But for a while he was seriously thinking about quitting.
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