Cretin in the circuit
I need to vent my spleen on this one. It won't do any good but I might feel better as a result.
Flew to Sandown, Isle of Wight today. Lovely strip to visit btw. V busy, the world and her partner had chosen to fly there, it felt like Heathrow quite often with one on the runway, one on final, one on base and at least one downwind at any given time.
They have an A/G service, which clearly gave 05 L/H. Joining instructions as published are let down to circuit height in the bay, cross wind join.
So I'm descending over the bay and get confused when I see a plane on the ground that wasn't there a moment ago at the far end of 05 looking like it's backtracking quite fast. You've guessed it, he had landed on 23.
There was a fairly exasperated radio operator telling him this, at which our hero was arguing that it wasn't his fault, he couldn't see the numbers on the ground.
To be fair, there aren't any numbers on the strip - nor are there are on many grass strips. But even in the absence of these, (a) he would have ignored his DI, (b) should surely have wondered why he was going a different direction to the rest of the circuit traffic, (c) on inspection of the windsock (of which there is one at each end of the runway) might have wondered why the prevailing landing direction was a tailwind and (d) might have thought his approach speed was a little fast.
Now, we all make mistakes, and all feel stupid when we do, especially when witnessed by an airfield teeming with pilots. But...FFS, this is a serious one and the time was right to say 'sorry' and to simply obey the instruction to exit the runway to the right 'urgently'. He did eventually exit but with no sense of urgency.
When in a hole - especially one that could have fatal implications - it's time to stop digging. I hope he learned from this one.