Bungling pilot lands RAF chief in wrong place
Ah he appears to be reading from the GW Bush school of geography after all Osama killed Americans on 9/11 (he was a Saudi) as were most of the hijackers, Saudis recognised Taliban as legitimate Govt as did UAE and Pakistan and good old Georgie boy attacked Iraq.
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RC135
I recall several years ago watching an RC135 making an approach to Honington when their runway was still maintained. The ILS was being checked that day by a Blue King Air and runway lights were on. I noticed said 135 on short finals and then applying rather a lot of power to line up on Mildenhall. I suppose it was a case of unfamiliarity, the guy not knowing tha Honington had to all intents and purposes closed for flying with the Reg present and it is slightly near to Mildy.
I hear that 'Bungling pilot' landed exactly where he planned to, and that the only person in the wrong place was the driver! But then that wouldn't have been such a good story, so it wouldn't have been published, and we would have been denied the opportunity of a bit more sniping. I think I prefer the journo's version, it's funnier than the facts.
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We were en route to pick up GOC of whichever MNB we were in Kosovo, when we were passed a new pick up grid, which was helpfully passed in ramrod. We decoded the grid and set off for new pick up point. As there was nothing but Kosovan peasants at the new grid, we thought we should check the grid, you guessed it, we had started with 1 instead of 0 (or was it the other way round) - doh. Correct new grid was only about 200m from original, which is where we arrived 15 mins late to find a rather peed off Brigadier.
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Musical AOCs
ISTR an AOCs formal inspection day at Lossie in the early eighties. At that time there were Units within 4 different groups represented at the Stn (please don't ask me to remember the actual groups, but they were there for the Buccaneer, the Shackleton, the SAR helicopter flight and the Jaguar OCU). To save time and effort, all AOCs would visit on the same day - it was planned that they all should arrive within a few minutes of each other by air and be taxied to the appropriate dispearsal for their charges.
As you have probably guessed, someone in ATC got the wrong callsign to the wrong dispearsal leading to an embarrassing arrival at the wrong parade and HS 125s taxying all over the airfield to get to the right spot. I imagine that it was a fun debrief....
As you have probably guessed, someone in ATC got the wrong callsign to the wrong dispearsal leading to an embarrassing arrival at the wrong parade and HS 125s taxying all over the airfield to get to the right spot. I imagine that it was a fun debrief....
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Another Wrong Destination
Just before the ground war during Operation Granby I had orders to pick up the then Lieutenant-General Sir Peter de la Billiere and entourage from Riyadh King Khalid International Airport. I had great difficulty getting permission to land from the American controllers who said I did not have authority to land. After holding off for half an hour I managed to persuade them to give clearance. We closed down at the Royal Pavilion. An American Colonel rushed onto the flight deck and asked what we were doing there our passengers were at Riyadh Air Base. I could see myself spending the rest of the war sweeping hangars out back at Brize. A very panicky check of the op order by my nav confirmed that we were where we were instructed to go….phew. Our passengers were in the wrong place, or we had been given incorrect instructions, never found out which, but probably the latter. The Colonel then couldn’t understand why we thought it was all very funny. I asked how long it would take to file a flight plan to move down the road or how long it would take them to drive to us. They drove to us. When they arrived I told the loadmaster to just chuck them on board and we would worry about the manifest when airborne. Half were in civvies half were in uniform but none looked like Saddam so I thought it would be OK. It was a bit embarrassing to go around asking for names so the manifest was compiled once they had fallen asleep by reading the names off tags on briefcases. 
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Nordhorn Range (for the Strike Target)
Back in the mid 90s we, the old and bold, used to pre-prepare a Nordhorn Strike Target map on the colour photocopier for our new squadron arrivals to reduce the pressure on them for their first trip to the range in their Strike qualification work-up! Of course, anybody who has been to the range knows just how few features there were/are on a heading of 161 from 'the church' past the 'old lady's house' and the 'crow's foot' to the Strike Target, so you needed all the help you could get in the planning stages!!
So, by clever use of 2 maps and by superimposing an autobahn just to the left of track and then photocopying the result we dispatched the new crew off to the range with every advantage and bursting with confidence
!!!!
Great days with no fun police in sight!
Foldie
So, by clever use of 2 maps and by superimposing an autobahn just to the left of track and then photocopying the result we dispatched the new crew off to the range with every advantage and bursting with confidence
!!!!Great days with no fun police in sight!
Foldie
we would have been denied the opportunity of a bit more sniping
Because Ops / Movs people found the pronunciation of 'Incirlik' all too difficult, they would insist on referring to it as 'Adana' - and using the IATA code 'ADA'....
So, somewhat predictably, one fine day one of HM's scruffy trash haulers did indeed land at 'Adana' - but at Adana (Sakirpasa - LTAF) rather than Adana (Incirlik - LTAG) where it was expected....
And wasn't rather a senior officer one of the operating crew..
So, somewhat predictably, one fine day one of HM's scruffy trash haulers did indeed land at 'Adana' - but at Adana (Sakirpasa - LTAF) rather than Adana (Incirlik - LTAG) where it was expected....
And wasn't rather a senior officer one of the operating crew..
There have been several instances of aircraft approaching and even landing at St Athan instead of Cardiff Airport, up to and including a B747 if I recall correctly. And didn't a B707 once land at Northolt instead of LHR?
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Royal Air Force Northolt
And didn't a B707 once land at Northolt instead of LHR?
Boeing 707-321, N725PA, Pan American World Airways (PA / PAA)
Actually even worse than landing at the wrong airfield the Army, who constructed Northolt in 1915, put the airfield in the wrong place. Well they would wouldn't they. No Royal Air Force then
They took aerial surveys and had decided to put the airfield to the north of the railway line. To the south is a very swampy area where in fact during the great plague they used to 'bring out the dead' and dump the bodies there where they just sunk. The surveyers got the map upside down and built the strip to the south - where of course it remains to this day. This is one of the reasons that Northolt still suffers from very localised early morning fog in the winter.
And then there was the GR1 formation at Laarbruch who planned a SAP against a very tempting-looking isolated barracks on the 50-thou map, only to find the area empty when they got there. It was actually a capital 'L' in the county name.
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Seem to remember several Teeny Weeny Airways helicopters landing at Lasham instead of Odious..... as well as Dan Dare airliners trying to land at Odious, ohh and then there was Gary Newman the pop star, who set off around the world on his dream flight, to be arrested when he managed to land at Odious, instead of Lasham, not a great start LOL
Howzat !
Hope they didn't damage the pitch - lucky the game was called off - HOWZAT ! - Chinook for 6 !
maybeTime to invest in Tom-Toms
such is life though , worst things happen at sea
& any Pilot who says he's never got it wrong isn't telling the truthGlad no one was hurt, just the Pilots pride & good for him for coming clean
I remember Sir Simon from Leeming.
He is an AD nav. The state of the F3 radar at the time meant that the navs spent 90%+ of their time trying to get some sense out of it. The pilots used to do most of the actual nav, especially low level.
..or if we're not being kind to AD navs; on my first crew solo my nav took precisely 2 mins 15 seconds at LL before he took me smack over a red dot. Always had a self-planned map after that.
My favourite from GW1. C5 Galaxy lands at Thumrait. Keen RAF mover has the unload 25% complete before the USAF pilot strolls up to him and says "Geez, I thought Bahrain was nearer the coast". "It probably is....Put it all back on, lads!"
He is an AD nav. The state of the F3 radar at the time meant that the navs spent 90%+ of their time trying to get some sense out of it. The pilots used to do most of the actual nav, especially low level.
..or if we're not being kind to AD navs; on my first crew solo my nav took precisely 2 mins 15 seconds at LL before he took me smack over a red dot. Always had a self-planned map after that.
My favourite from GW1. C5 Galaxy lands at Thumrait. Keen RAF mover has the unload 25% complete before the USAF pilot strolls up to him and says "Geez, I thought Bahrain was nearer the coast". "It probably is....Put it all back on, lads!"
But since Mikey-the-Pikey's unfortunate passengers are quite used to landing at tatty, run down airstrips in the middle of nowhere masquerading as 'airports', I doubt whether anyone in the back noticed that Ballykelly wasn't the intended aerodrome of arrival.
One of the best people-tube wrong airport cock-ups of recent times was the North West DC10 which landed at Brussels thinking it was Frankfurt. The passengers had seen the wrong destination on their seat back flight following maps (not an option on Ryanair's cheap and nasty seats, of course) and had alerted the trolley tarts, but the latter refused to contact the flight crew because of 'sterile cockpit' rules below FL100.....
The incident was later blamed on Air Traffic, would you believe!
One of the best people-tube wrong airport cock-ups of recent times was the North West DC10 which landed at Brussels thinking it was Frankfurt. The passengers had seen the wrong destination on their seat back flight following maps (not an option on Ryanair's cheap and nasty seats, of course) and had alerted the trolley tarts, but the latter refused to contact the flight crew because of 'sterile cockpit' rules below FL100.....
The incident was later blamed on Air Traffic, would you believe!
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Whilst not landings, a couple of "near misses" spring to mind. Early eighties, a Jaguar (?) cleared fast into Duxford for a display somewhat startled a couple of old coves in Tiger Moths as they pootled round the circuit at Cambridge. Then of course, it only a few years ago that the cousins kindly agreed to fly one of their nice B52's all the way from Swampsville AZ to Farnborough to display the power projection capability of Georgie B, only to rattle the windows of the good people of Blackbushe instead.
And many years ago, whilst I was towing out a glider to the launch point at Lasham a Buccaneer appeared at warp snot at not a lot of feet. After a high "g" 270 degree turn it fecked off to Odiham.
Fortunately we weren't winch launching at the time. Quite impressive though!
Fortunately we weren't winch launching at the time. Quite impressive though!