Jumbo jet mistakenly lands at tiny Kansas airport
BBC News - Jumbo jet mistakenly lands at tiny Kansas airport
Listen to an excerpt from the exchange between the control tower and pilot
A Boeing 747 Dreamlifter cargo plane will attempt to take off from a minor airport in Kansas after it landed there by mistake.
The giant cargo jet was heading for McConnell air force base in Wichita but instead touched down at nearby Colonel James Jabara airport.
Airport officials believe the plane will be able to depart despite the much shorter runway at Jabara.
An attempt is scheduled for noon local time (18:00 GMT) on Thursday.
The aircraft normally needs a runway of 2,780m (9,119ft) to get airborne at maximum weight; Jabara's runway is only 1,860m long.
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A tug was dispatched to the airport to turn around the giant cargo plane.
Brad Christopher of the Wichita Airport Authority told the Associated Press news agency the company that operates the aircraft had "assured us they've run all the engineering calculation and performance and the aircraft is very safe for a normal departure at its current weight and conditions here".
The Dreamlifter, which landed at Jabara on Wednesday evening, is a modified 747-400 passenger aeroplane, which can carry more cargo by volume than any aeroplane in the world, according to Boeing.
The aerospace company uses its fleet of four Dreamlifters to transport large assembled components of its 787 Dreamliner from suppliers around the world to the final assembly location in Washington state.
The City of Wichita tweeted that no one was injured and no property damage occurred when the plane landed.
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BBC News - Jumbo jet mistakenly lands at tiny Kansas airport
comment:
This is what happens when TWO pilots rely on pressing buttons into a dumb computer
on the latest bit of technology
and
or fail to have "situational awareness".