Commercial Pilot Lands at Wrong Field
When I flew the B707 for BOAC back in the 1970s there was an item on the landing check which said "Airfield and Runway......Identified and Crosschecked"!
We could add to the list a BOAC VC10 which landed at Sharjah instead of Dubai - many factors but the crew had extended duty and had been on something like 15 hours.
Just for the record the a/c which landed at Ballykelly instead of Derry belonged to Eirjet operating a Ryanair flight (ie not actually a Ryanair a/c, crew etc).
We could add to the list a BOAC VC10 which landed at Sharjah instead of Dubai - many factors but the crew had extended duty and had been on something like 15 hours.
Just for the record the a/c which landed at Ballykelly instead of Derry belonged to Eirjet operating a Ryanair flight (ie not actually a Ryanair a/c, crew etc).
Last edited by fireflybob; 12th Sep 2011 at 13:57.
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The airport authorities / FAA etc have to take responsibility for these incidents too. Where there is a risk of this type of incident occurring (or when it has previously occurred), a note on a Jepp chart or additional lighting to differentiate the airports may prevent further incidents.
For example, YMML (Melbourne, Aust) vs YMEN (Essendon): YMML has notes on the STARS cautioning the similar runway orientation at YMEN and additional white strobe lights confirming the final approach to YMML are also installed.
As for solely "looking out the window" when flying a visual approach on a modern jet, and not using aids / map display and in multi-crew aircraft for the PNF not to have a look at a DME/height check etc etc.... The 100's of people sitting in the back deserve better than that.
For example, YMML (Melbourne, Aust) vs YMEN (Essendon): YMML has notes on the STARS cautioning the similar runway orientation at YMEN and additional white strobe lights confirming the final approach to YMML are also installed.
As for solely "looking out the window" when flying a visual approach on a modern jet, and not using aids / map display and in multi-crew aircraft for the PNF not to have a look at a DME/height check etc etc.... The 100's of people sitting in the back deserve better than that.
Its not just landings that can be embarrassing
Didnt a USAF B52 do a flyby at Blackbushe not the Farnborough airshow a few years ago. I saw that myself but use the questioning tone since there were suggestions he had dodgy ATC vectors and the turn to the EGLF centre line was too tight at low level.
Also some years back the daily BA ( DC10 I think) to Bermuda lined up to land on a very short disused runway at kindley field and then shook everyone up in the sleepy little town of St Georges as he went around. Looking for a runway on base leg ,sees a runway, starts approach-had he stayed on the base leg another 30 seconds he would have seen a very long runway on the other side of the low hill that hid it from his view earlier.
it always amazes me as a pax how runways just do not stand out from the surrounding terrain a few miles out unless all lit up and how tiny they look from a typical 2000 ft 6-7 miles out final approach intercept.
PB
Didnt a USAF B52 do a flyby at Blackbushe not the Farnborough airshow a few years ago. I saw that myself but use the questioning tone since there were suggestions he had dodgy ATC vectors and the turn to the EGLF centre line was too tight at low level.
Also some years back the daily BA ( DC10 I think) to Bermuda lined up to land on a very short disused runway at kindley field and then shook everyone up in the sleepy little town of St Georges as he went around. Looking for a runway on base leg ,sees a runway, starts approach-had he stayed on the base leg another 30 seconds he would have seen a very long runway on the other side of the low hill that hid it from his view earlier.
it always amazes me as a pax how runways just do not stand out from the surrounding terrain a few miles out unless all lit up and how tiny they look from a typical 2000 ft 6-7 miles out final approach intercept.
PB
Storming,
You are not wrong. Like me, though, perhaps a little old with a half decent memory. So many commercial planes fancied landing at Northolt instead of lhr that a very large NO with a arrow was painted on a very large gasholder at South Harrow. I'm not sure whether it could be seen in the dark.
back in the 50s there were some scheduled flights to Northolt, so maybe doddery ex-RAF types were simply going where their memory told them......
...and as for some Navigators, I was at farnborough, awaiting a B52 fly-past, when the B 52 decided to fly-past Blackbushe instead.
You are not wrong. Like me, though, perhaps a little old with a half decent memory. So many commercial planes fancied landing at Northolt instead of lhr that a very large NO with a arrow was painted on a very large gasholder at South Harrow. I'm not sure whether it could be seen in the dark.
back in the 50s there were some scheduled flights to Northolt, so maybe doddery ex-RAF types were simply going where their memory told them......
...and as for some Navigators, I was at farnborough, awaiting a B52 fly-past, when the B 52 decided to fly-past Blackbushe instead.
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Every conceiveable aviating or aircraft operating mistake has been, or will be made by some pilot, somewhere. In large part, that's how our manuals get written.
Just a hunch, but I don't think there's much correlation between level of experience and wrong field landings. I have to confess about 20 years ago, with 15 years of flying under my belt, I zeroed in on a visual at Midland, Texas to the wrong field. As I was lining up, the other guy said, "Hey, that's not it."
Like gear up landings, there but for the grace of God...
I think a far more insidious and dangerous threat is taking off improperly configured.
Just a hunch, but I don't think there's much correlation between level of experience and wrong field landings. I have to confess about 20 years ago, with 15 years of flying under my belt, I zeroed in on a visual at Midland, Texas to the wrong field. As I was lining up, the other guy said, "Hey, that's not it."
Like gear up landings, there but for the grace of God...
I think a far more insidious and dangerous threat is taking off improperly configured.
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Milt
I have also spent most of my life in the Southern Hemisphere either at sea or in aviation and found exactly the same thing when living in Canada and Europe - I invariably turn the wrong way! I have decided that it is because the sun is in the "wrong" position.
I have also spent most of my life in the Southern Hemisphere either at sea or in aviation and found exactly the same thing when living in Canada and Europe - I invariably turn the wrong way! I have decided that it is because the sun is in the "wrong" position.
Mistaking Northolt for Heathrow
I sat in Northolt tower one blustery morning nearly half a century ago(!) when Heathrow were using 23L (now a taxiway) and was surprised how close and low their traffic was when crossing the final approach for 26 at Northolt. Later that same day, after I'd left, as passenger in an Aztec, Air France made their notorious mistake!
Just to be clear, the NO and LH arrows were added to the respective gas holders after that time, I think, 1964. The Uncle Roger column in Flight Magazine did a good parody about how NO meant "no" if you wanted Heathrow but NO meant "yes" if you wanted Northolt and LH being "yes" for Heathrow but "no" for Northolt!
Just to be clear, the NO and LH arrows were added to the respective gas holders after that time, I think, 1964. The Uncle Roger column in Flight Magazine did a good parody about how NO meant "no" if you wanted Heathrow but NO meant "yes" if you wanted Northolt and LH being "yes" for Heathrow but "no" for Northolt!
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Just for the record the a/c which landed at Kerry instead of Derry belonged to Eirjet operating a Ryanair flight (ie not actually a Ryanair a/c, crew etc).
I believe the airfield in question was the disused Ballykelly and it was a wet leased Eirjet A320.
Almost as bad as the RYR pilot who landed on a taxiway a few years back.
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What this shows me is that all human beings are capable of making incredibly foolish and extremely dangerous mistakes, even though they may be very talented individuals. You will find that many of the people who made these errors have been subject to rigorous selection processes, intense and high quality training and had many years of incident-free flying. They had no desire other than to the best they could be that day and certainly would have been mortified if they knew what they were about to do. It would probably also be true to say that they would have been joining the mockers on here berating the idiots who had done such a stupid thing had it happened to someone else.
What this tells me is that we can all do it. Therefore, we have to build-in anti-error strategies into our flying. The first one seems to me an inclusion of a threat-error management section in our briefs. That means we identify nearby airfields that could cause us to mis-identify our true destination. Also, the use of navaids for visual approaches in a commercial airliner just seems total common sense - yet another protection in place to save us from ourselves! I am more than happy to concede that, given the right combination of circumstances, I could do this - my only question is how best to minimise the likelihood of it happening. I would suggest that humility may be the best approach to this - there but for the grace of God go I.
What this tells me is that we can all do it. Therefore, we have to build-in anti-error strategies into our flying. The first one seems to me an inclusion of a threat-error management section in our briefs. That means we identify nearby airfields that could cause us to mis-identify our true destination. Also, the use of navaids for visual approaches in a commercial airliner just seems total common sense - yet another protection in place to save us from ourselves! I am more than happy to concede that, given the right combination of circumstances, I could do this - my only question is how best to minimise the likelihood of it happening. I would suggest that humility may be the best approach to this - there but for the grace of God go I.
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There's a reason the snack bar at Ohio State U.'s airport (Don Scott field, KOSU) was renamed the "707 Room". Roger Bacon tells the tale.
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You weren't, perchance, in the JS saying: "I reckon that's it in the distance there, Boss." ?
A month later I was a new chief pilot and X was no longer associated with the company.
Back then there was no long range navigation systems for business jets, all we had for navigation was VORs/DMEs and dual ADFs. So we used the ADFs for crossing the Gulf of Mexico when we got out of range of the VORs. When we got close enough to Mexico we would tune in the Cozumel VOR because it was more powerful than Cancun's. Then when we were able to receive the Cancun VOR on number two VOR, we'd change the number one VOR over to that.
Well that night, as they were getting in range of Cancun, the co-pilot reached over and changed the number one, or the captain's, VOR. Chief Pilot X, yelled at the co-pilot not to change his radio and changed it back to Cozumel.
He never changed it back to Cancun. So Don, the co-pilot, thought,
'okay, let's see what's going to happen'. Twice more Don tried to bring to X's attention that he was tuned to the wrong VOR and X ignored him. Don told me that it was a clear night, so he just sat in the right seat, talking to the Cancun tower and watched the Cancun airport pass off the right side of the aircraft, watched them fly back out over the Gulf, cross over the island's border, turn downwind, base and then they landed at Cozumel. All this time Don is talking to the Cancun tower and the Cancun tower is tell the Cozumel tower what is happening.
The Cancun tower even relayed to Don that the Cozumel tower cleared them to land. All of this was completely ignored by Chief Pilot X. Don told me that the Cancun tower basically said, 'Tell the fool flying he is cleared to land at the wrong airport.'
Things improved greatly after I took over.
Oh, if you knew 'Chief Pilot X', this story would not surprise you. He's still alive, how no one is really sure.
Not sure why my response to viking was deleted. I guess a certain famous encylopedia site is "verboten" as a memory aid. So be it.
Interesting that southeast Florida has FOUR airports with near-identical runway layouts in close proximity, but so far as I know, has not had any wrong-airport landings.
KMIA, KTMB, KOPF, and KFLL all have east-west parallels with a crossing NW/SE runway.
Interesting that southeast Florida has FOUR airports with near-identical runway layouts in close proximity, but so far as I know, has not had any wrong-airport landings.
KMIA, KTMB, KOPF, and KFLL all have east-west parallels with a crossing NW/SE runway.
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Delighted to see actual pilots responding to this thread with plenty of there-but-for-the-grace-of-god stories, since the thread was in danger of being overwhelmed by the cluck-clucking nonpilots who haven't the faintest idea how easy it is to land at the wrong airport, particularly if you're operating single-pilot.
I once landed at a tower-controlled airport (Pittsburg, Kansas) thinking I was going into an uncontrolled field. Had plenty of radios aboard, but I didn't say a word, taxied back and took off. Never heard a word about it, fortunately.
Where I live, there are two runways roughly aligned east/west with each other, one at POU, the other about eight miles farther on, at SWF. Fly the VOR approach to SWF and the first thing you see inbound is that POU runway dead ahead... No surprise that a four-engine jet landed at POU some years ago and barely stopped before the no-overrun west end.
I once landed at a tower-controlled airport (Pittsburg, Kansas) thinking I was going into an uncontrolled field. Had plenty of radios aboard, but I didn't say a word, taxied back and took off. Never heard a word about it, fortunately.
Where I live, there are two runways roughly aligned east/west with each other, one at POU, the other about eight miles farther on, at SWF. Fly the VOR approach to SWF and the first thing you see inbound is that POU runway dead ahead... No surprise that a four-engine jet landed at POU some years ago and barely stopped before the no-overrun west end.
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Thanks for the truthful stories
but-for-the-grace-of-god stories
In Asia there are plenty of airfields close to one another, eg Sangley near NAIA, Sungsan near Taoyuan and lots of small military airfields near major Chinese and Korean airports. It can happen here too but the consequences will be quite severe!
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What kind of steps are taken against pilots in the US for such errors.?
Sen Inhoffe got off quite lightly for landing on a closed runway with workers and vehicles directly in his flight path.
And, yes, I agree.
He who makes no mistakes does nothing.
Sen Inhoffe got off quite lightly for landing on a closed runway with workers and vehicles directly in his flight path.
And, yes, I agree.
He who makes no mistakes does nothing.
