aircraft landing at the wrong airfield
 

I was wondering how often aircraft have landed at the wrong airfield.

Take for example Pan Am Boeing 707 landing at RAF Northolt (anyone have details ?)

I would assume that details would be scarce as to avoid embarrassment but there must have been a few mistakes.

regarding the Boeing 707 / Northolt incident, how was the aircraft flown out again (runway too short) ?

Photo of it's take-off here

Boeing 707-321, N725PA, Pan American World Airways (PA / PAA)

Not as uncommon an occurance as you would think. Here's just a few..................................:hmm:


Wrong Way Landings By Commercial Airliners

A few more titbits from PPRUNE past..............

https://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-133849.html

If the Northolt 707 departed the next morning, presumably it used just a regular crew who were slipping at LHR. Love to have seen the Captain's face when he turned up for the preflight briefing.

707 @ Northolt
 

If I remember correctly, a lot of the equiptment on the 707 was removed, the captain who flew it in was made to fly it out & when he arrived at LHR he was sacked.

tristar500

Notable C-5 incident
 

Aircraft 68-0227 (C-5A) was the first operational loss of a C-5 Galaxy. On 27 September 1974, the aircraft crashed after over-running the runway at Clinton, Oklahoma Municipal Airport during an emergency landing following a serious landing gear fire. The crew mistakenly aligned the aircraft for the visual approach into the wrong airport, landing at Clinton Municipal which has a 4,400 ft (1,340 m) runway, instead of Clinton-Sherman airfield which has a 13,500 ft (4,115 m) runway

Armin Faber in his Fw190. Pembrey instead of Maupertus-sur-Mer. (I remembered his name but had to Google the airfields.)

Shawbury and Sleap and the Gnat. Dishforth and Leeming (both Runway 34). Oh, quite a few.

I always will remember (at Dishforth ATC), Leeming ATC coming on the Landline and asking if we had a Cranwell JP on our runway. Looking up from our game of Uckers, (we were closed at the time), 'Oh yes we have' was the reply. 'Ah' said Leeming, 'He's asking for taxy instuctions'.

'No problem' replied our Master Signaller Local Controller 'Tell him to turn left from where he is, cross the Southbound A1, join the Northbound and taxy for about 11 miles, then recall for parking'.

It happened in Nairobi in the early 50's, a BOAC Constellation ended up at the then Nairobi West when it should have been at Eastleigh. Caused an amount of hilarity among the local population. Best bit was getting the passengers off as the tallest steps at Nairobi West were used with EAAC DC3s..........!!!

Planemike

Well at least one JP landed at Barkston in the late 80's with, somehow, the QFI thinking he was landing at Cranwell.......

To be fair said QFI was commendably honest, it had been a long hard week, and the QFI's (acting ) Flight Commander was suitably sympathetic :D :D

Are you here Shakey :ok:

More recently, City of Derry airport and Ballykelly - both 08/26 - Eirjet!

Taxydual,

We played Uckers ar (Watton) Eastern Radar also :)

Norwich (Horsham-St-Faith) vs Coltishall; probably started in the days of the Meteor, Hunter, etc, certainly with a Lightning, which probably was more exciting.

In the early 1980's a Qantas 747 successfully carried out a visual approach to Hughes airport instead of LAX. Go-around carried out and demotion for the crew if I remember rightly.

When I was at Lossiemouth there were rumours of a USAF F111 who was supposed to be in the (rain swept and misty) pattern for Lossie doing a roller at RAF Milltown (about 10 miles away) by mistake. Trouble was Milltown had been closed as a airfield for an awfully long time, so when said F111 landed at Lossiemouth about 20 minutes later (somehow) he had what was left of a barbed wire fence in the undercarriage. It could have just been a fairy story, but we laughed at the time.

I seem to recall a Sabena 737 once decided to take a tour of leafy Cheshire and duly headed for Woodford ( rather than MAN ).....but decided having had a look at the dump, that it wouldn't actually land there.

Summer of '76, a Hunter very nearly broke into the Withybush circuit instead of the Brawdy circuit......:uhoh:

Fortunately it was going fast enough for the pilot to tweak back on the control column and hit 2000ft before 2 miles, so no ATZ infringement.

Doubtless a nice blue note for the locals though - and no-one ever complained!

A birdseed into Singapore mistook airports. Probably early eighties.

Seletar instead of Changi or other way round. Either way the skipper of course carried the can - big time. He was bailed up by the press as he left the terminal.

'What are your intentions now, Captain?'

'Well I'd say it's a fair bet I'll be looking closely at a little farm in Devon I noticed up for sale last week.'

In 1953 a RAF Canberra in the England-NZ air race landed at the little town site Connellan Airways unsealed strip in Alice Springs instead of at the main airport six miles south. She just got off in a huge cloud of red dust.

And the US fast jet (F1-11?) that beat up Manchester Airport instead of doing a fly-by at the Woodford airshow.

That Pan Am 707 is well airborne in that photo and must have lifted off about halfway down the 5,500 ft runway. So, plenty of runway, no real drama and no real need to close the A40?