To those pilots who post about their own personal experiences regarding inadvertantly mistaking other airfields for their intended destinations, thank you very much for your honesty, humbleness and willingness to share. A real breath of fresh air, far cry from those self aggrandizing posts about superior flying skills, yada, yada, yada.
Though I have never made such error in any of my landing approaches, I have turned onto wrong taxiways on the ground a couple of times. I have been even caught turning into the wrong gate once!
I am alway amazed at local US pilots making derogatory remarks ( at immigration lines ) about foreign pilots being reluctant to accept visual approaches. Come on guys, we probably fly to some US airports once in 6 months or once in a year; we are not familiar with all the visual landmarks, rivers, highways, race tracks etc. When ATC gives rapid fire visual clearances specifying visual landmarks, it is very dicey for anyone unfamiliar with the local scene to accept visual approaches.
The sniggers we get when we need to ask for repeat of ATC instructions, the disparaging remarks when we miss a high speed turn off, etc are all examples of small man syndrome. I have heard US and foreign pilots struggling with ATC in Asia too, or even in Europe.