Pilot stood down after near-highway landing
 

ABC News online

Pilot stood down after near-highway landing

Impulse Airlines has stood down a pilot, pending an internal investigation into an incident in which a passenger jet was brought in to land on the Bruce Highway on the outskirts of the north Queensland city of Mackay last month.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau says the 717 jet, carrying 90 passengers, came within 200 metres of the highway before air traffic controllers alerted the pilot.

Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman Peter Gibson says the investigations are also being closely monitored by the regulatory watchdog.

"Standard procedure is for companies to stand down crews while these sorts of investigations are underway into serious incidents - that's happened so there's no immediate threat to safety," he said.

"The airline will give us a detailed report both on the actions they take in relation to the pilot and their review of procedures and practices during landings."

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I seem to remember an Australian Airlines aircraft trying to do the same back about 14 yrs ago.
They were carrying out the VOR approach into the North I believe. The inbound lines up nicely on the highway from memory. Goes to show how important a sound briefing re visual picture at minima can be.
Just loved those Mackay onights.

Funny how it's "impulse" for bad publicity and "qantas" or "qantaslink" for good publicity. Didn't think impulse existed any more.