Depends where you wrongly landed and how bored the tower crew is. There are plenty of controlled fields in the U. S. that see maybe a dozen flights a day, believe it or not, particularly now that GA is half-dead. It's been awhile since I was involved in anything like that, but I suspect that if you quickly call the tower or FSS and apologize, explain what caused you to make the mistake, they'll just tell you to try not to do it again.

I speak as a GA pilot, of course. I'm sure it's quite different for air-transport pilots.

Senator Inhofe, by the way, tried to buy my Falco 10 years ago. I refused to sell it to him.

Thanks, I think you made a wise decision 10 years ago.:ok:

By the grace of god
 

My dear Harry, this incident happened not to a major airline's crew and most of the truthful posters here are probably down to earth GA pilots. The legacy airline pilots in the first world are a different breed altogether, who in their own own little world can do no wrong.

If you're talking about the incident in Louisiana that initiated this thread, it indeed was "an airliner," albeit a turboprop short-haul aircraft. Granted, not an A380, but where do we draw the line?

Landing by mistake....
 

Years ego ( 1989 or 1990 ) a Commertial pilot during night arroached a wrong rw in Dubai ( Sharghia) and over shouted at 50ft for the other rw .....

Northwest Airlines pilots missed their stop by 150 miles.

At least it wasn't Continental. Human frailty knows no boundaries.:E

Easily resolved, just call it a tech stop.

It is simple just follow the proceedures you will land at the proper airport on the proper runway.

VFD

"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."

From the NTSB, an event on June 10, 1973, (sorry for the poor formatting):



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FILE DATE LOCATION AIRCRAFT DATA INJURIES FLIGHT PILOT DATA
F S M/N PURPOSE
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4-0030 73/6/10 OPA LOCKA,FLA BOEING 727 CR- 0 0 8 SCHED DOM PASSG SRV AIRLINE TRANSPORT, AGE
TIME - 2110 N7625U PX- 0 0 71 UNK/NR, UNK/NR TOTAL
DAMAGE-NONE OT- 0 0 0 HOURS, UNK/NR IN TYPE,
INSTRUMENT RATED.
CLASSIFIED AS INCIDENT
NAME OF AIRPORT - OPA LOCKA
OPERATOR - UNITED AIR LINES,INC.
DEPARTURE POINT INTENDED DESTINATION
ATLANTA,GA MIAMI,FLA
TYPE OF ACCIDENT PHASE OF OPERATION
MISCELLANEOUS LANDING: LEVEL OFF/TOUCHDOWN
PROBABLE CAUSE(S)
COPILOT - FAILED TO FOLLOW APPROVED PROCEDURES,DIRECTIVES,ETC.
PILOT IN COMMAND - INADEQUATE SUPERVISION OF FLIGHT
MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS - LANDED AT WRONG AIRPORT
REMARKS- VISUAL APCH TO LND AT MIA INTL LNDD AT OPA LOCKA RADIO SET 119.3 MIA TWR FREQ 118.3 MH.

There are dozens of "wrong" airport landings listed at:


http://www.thirdamendment.com/wrongway.html


Some say, any landing that you can walk away from is good landing:)

Unlike some flight-simulator game, flying isn't always a matter of "following procedures," but I don't suppose you'd understand that.

No excuse whatsoever for landing at the wrong airport. Errors such as this happen when there is breakdown of SOPs and CRM. I've never seen an FCOM that had a statemen to the effect that if a visual approach is to be accomplished then naviads when available shall be tuned and identified as a backup and confirmation.

I remember years back a CAL with an FMS landed at the wrong airport at Corpus Christi in CAVOK conditions. The excuses and justifications were just beyond belief.

Yes... Jeppy needs to insert notes about airports that may be confused with intended airports of landing to help preclude such incidences.

Oh, you pompous Alphabet Soup with all your FMSes and CAVOKs...Try an SPO into ACS AN and then STFU.

Yes, let's get some more posts in so it flips to the next page and gets us off this oversized image induced mess!

Sorry Stepwilk… I did not realize you were sitting in front of your Microsoft Flight Simulator or Play Station. Anyway here goes.

SOP = Standard Operating Procedures

CRM = Crew Resource Management

FCOM = Flight Crew Operations Manual

CAL = Continental Airlines

CAVOK = Ceiling and Visibility OK (can’t defined OK any further than OK.. OK?)

Jeppy – Jeppessen

DS = well from the tone of your post Stepwik, you can define that anyway that best suits your personality;).

All the best from the Pompous Alphabet Soup.

A few years ago, a student pilot was aiming for KTMB and wound up on final to KFLL instead (while talking to KTMB tower). She got quite close to the ground before realizing that KTMB didn't normally have Boeing and Airbus products on the ramp.

She only missed her airport by 30 or so miles. I suspect she did not receive a passing grade for that lesson.

On a related note, I've been in the situation where I've been issued a landing clearance by a controller at the wrong tower. Luckily, that was quickly rectified. Since then, I've been extra careful to remember to say the name of the facility I'm contacting, instead of just the position. ie "Miami tower, N123..." instead of just "Tower, N123..."

One of our airliners was trying to land at El Paso and ended up at the military field just north. Realizing his mistake he took off again and landed at El Paso. He got in more trouble for his unauthorized take off than his original mistake.

Akali Dal - Just to clarify my background, I am not a GA pilot but an Airbus A320 Captain and 'Check Airman' (called something different here in the UK) who has been on the Airbus for more than 10 years. Before that I flew various other commercial types and before that I was in the military. Like I said, there are numerous dreadful errors out there waiting to beset us all, and I would be the first to say it could happen to me. I am therefore doing my best to ensure it does not! In recent years, for example, there have been countless examples of very senior pilots getting lost on taxiways, entering runways without permission or taking off and landing on the taxiways instead of using the runways provided! Virtually every one of the pilots involved were competent, capable individuals with solid training records but who 'lost the plot' for a small but critical period of time. Thus far, I have avoided being involved myself in one of these incidents, but that just means the statistics are stacking up against me! As I said previously, half the battle is recognising that we are all capable of this happening to us. Thereafter we have to provide conscious mechanisms to make sure it does not.

Wasn't Pinnacle going to drop the Colgan name more than a year ago?

Did a hop in one of their Saabs a few weeks ago, it was Colgan operating as United Express. The biggest issue was that the air conditioner operates only when the engine is on, and even then it is underpowered.

The plane came in about 25 minutes prior to departure, and by the time we boarded at 2:30 pm, the temperature inside the cabin was easily 100°F with the shades down. It took about 15 minutes of flight for the temperature to drop a little, and it was still hot when we landed 10 minutes later.

The poor flight attendent was sweating profusely and looked and acted exhausted. Got a look at the pilots later in the terminal, they were in a similar condition. How can anyone keep up performance after a couple of such hops?

I agree, it’s not hard to get lost at a complex airport especially during night and rainy conditions with poorly marked taxiways or no markers for that matter. There have been times where I sought the assistance of the ground controller to help me find my way rather than creating havoc or conflicts. The controller may be irritated, but I remind him that at the end of the day his help will save us both a lot of unnecessary paperwork.

I still find it difficult to understand how an error in landing at a wrong airport can occur if proper briefings are accomplished, available naviads are tuned and used as a reference during visual approaches.

It’s a fact that a breakdown in disciplines do result in disastrous outcomes. Case of the CRJ departing Lexington KY on the wrong runway a couple of years back resulting in deaths at the hands of competent airmen. No final compass check after taking the runway… something so simple. Another needless tragedy was when an American Airlines B757 crew ran a perfectly good jet into mountain crest because they were out to lunch… Not verifying the waypoint of the fix they wanted to fly to for the approach.

Is anybody impervious to mistakes? Heck no!!! But as competently trained and qualified air crews we exercise CRM, SOPs along with situational awareness and proper disciplines to reduce such events that may result in a tea and biscuit fest with the CP or even worse premature death. At the end of the day passengers paying money for safe passage from Point A to Point B want to hear the line catchall phrase, “Yes… it can happen to anyone.” Check Airmen can't stress enough the importance of following porper procedures as set forth during training.

BOAC landed a Britannia at Cartierville, the GA airfield about 3 nm NE of Montreals' Dorval Int. Airport, with parallel runways in the same direction. The Capt. ( one of the 'nicer' North Atlantic Barons ) just taxied around and took off again and landed at Dorval, and when the stuff hit the fan he remarked " I thought least said, soonest mended " !! but ........... a student pilot flying solo in a Cessna decided that BOAC couldn't be wrong ......... so ........ he hung a left and landed at Dorval !!

The Flight Manager threatened the next 'wrong airport' landing Captain with the sack, then promptly landed at the nearby USAF Base near Manchester Ringway - he didn't sack himself.

Licence Type (eg CPL. Pilots only) commercial
Current a/c Type (eg B737. Pilots only) All under-12,500 lb. GA single and multiengine land and sea planes, glider, CE500 type rating
Biography former Exec Editor Flying magazine, currently contribute to Air & Space and Aviation History magazines

:ugh:

There have been many instances of Naval aviators landing on the wrong carrier, known as "catching a live one". The carrier involved would sometimes let the errant aircraft land to pile embarrassment on the crew. Before the suitably redecorated aircraft was allowed to launch and recover to the correct carrier, a case of the captains favourite tipple was normally offered as compensation.

Pre-flight Important, Too
 

In Aug 1983, a CAL DC-10 took off from LAX headed for HNL. By the time they reached the departure gateway, ATC advised they were north of course. They checked the dual INS, and returned to LAX, flagging both INS for bad navigation.

That nearly state of the art INS had only one item in NVM, the lat/long at shutdown. That was same as departure lat/long in this case. Supposedly the FE had entered the departure lat/long, then verified by the pilots. The Lat was correct for LAX, but the Longitude was for Denver.

If they hadn't been caught by ATC, they may have ended up lost beyond VHF range of HNL, 800 miles to the west.

KAL007 happened a month later. Instead of 149W, the FE could have entered 140W or 139W.

Along the lines of "how could they possibly miss that"; a long time ago I read in a Naval Aviation magazine safety collumn that the Nayv had launched every type of folding wing (as in make space on deck, not variable geometry) aircraft they own at least once with the wings still folded!

Totally amazing is that some did -not- end up in the water but managed to open the wings after launch.

The way those two airports are situated it is very easy to lie up on the wrong airport when landing to the south when approaching from the north on a visual approach, even in very clear weather.

I always had the ILS tuned for El Paso no matter how clear the weather was. It is a trap that is very easy to fall into.

One place that was just as bad is no longer an issue. That was Kansas City, Missouri Downtown Airport, which used to be the home base for TWA and Kansas City, Kansas Fairfax Airport just across the river. There one was most likely to mistake the two airports in poor weather conditions while shooting the ILS approach with a cross wind from the west. When you broke out of the clouds around 500 to 1,000 AGL with a west crosswind, the Fairfax runway was right in front of the aircraft, perfectly lined up. Fairfax is now closed, so the problem no longer exists.

I don't recall hearing "wrong airport" stories about any of the Florida airports, which have similar layouts in some cases.

I do remember a story of an ATCO querying one pilot, "Are you landing at FLL (Fort Lauderdale)?" "Yes, why?" "Well, it just went by over your right shoulder."

Yoiks!:eek:

so "commercial" pilot is a big thing. why not airline pilot since there are plenty of em in the past aiming for the the wrong strip.

History has shown that mistakes can happen to anyone. My emphasis was never to land at the wrong airport or the wrong runway, no pod or tail strikes, no wing strikes during taxi (even with the assistance of marshallers) and no gear up landings...essentially, no accidents or incidents. I set the parking brake for the last time at the airlines meeting those goals (with a proud sigh, I might add), and I still do a bit of flying. So far, so good...

I am thankful for my luck and wish the same for others. :D

Right on Desert!

That's something worth aspiring to. So far so good, but always on guard.

All too easily done.

I suspect that the problem is often one of insufficient planning and briefing. As pilots, we thoroughly brief any instrument approach, despite them being our daily diet yet we are often guilty of rushing into a visual approach even though they are rare "treats" for an airline pilot.

Not that long ago, a private jet carrying a certain F1 driver from the west country landed at Filton rather than Bristol.

no excuse
 

Almost - but not quite I too could have landed at the wrong field - Being a newly qualified PPL and on my first real overland trip from Biggin to Hurn -with the final stage of the trip flying over the New Forest - which I beleive at that time still had two or three disused RAF airfields in close proximity to each other - with the outcome that most will now realise. So there I was giving my circuit position to the Hurn controller who acknowledged each call - placing me somewhere around Nr 3 downwind - (it was many years ago and memory may have lapsed) and only when reporting on base or turning final did the controller realise something was not quite right - and anxiously suggested could I be over Stony Stratford - or the other nearby disused airfield. Realising my mistake
at the 11th hour I had every good reason to be grateful to the Hurn controller that day !

...

lining up for the runway at Camp Pendleton Marine Base instead of Fallbrook, CA just after 9/11 will make your heart flutter a bit when you realise what you have done (still a little short of the restricted area fortunately).

Good attitude towards learning and try never to lose that personal quality. A healthy dose of skepticism also goes a long way toward preventing mistakes based on faulty assumptions. As time goes on and as each new achievement is realized, your confidence in self will grow, yet should be tempered by the humility that can come only with experience. Humility and confidence can and do coexist in the best pilots I've known and flown with.

In that vein, I'll share a couple of experiences related to the thread topic.

We were flying into Boeing field (KBFI) in Seattle, WA and had just been issued a descent and a heading to intercept the final approach course for the ILS 31L. So we're turning and descending and it looks like we'll get all this done in time to capture the LOC and configure for approach with room to spare. There were layered cloud conditions and we were in and out of the clouds and into bright sunshine with excellent visibility every few seconds. What is known as a beautiful day in the Seattle area.

Just as the LOC came alive, we get a TCAS "climb" RA! Okay, nose and thrust up, we fly right into a big billowy cumulus cloud. After a few seconds, the PNF had notified ATC and ID'd the red traffic symbol on the MAP display as being behind us just as the "clear of conflict" message comes over the audio. Okay we agree. time to push back down to the last altitude and capture the LOC. Just then we fly out of the cloud and see a big runway right in front of us, perfectly lined up only a few miles away. Crap, we're pretty high to make the straight-in, but the nose is down and Hawkers descend very capably. We can make it.

I notice my partner squirming in his seat as he advises ATC of our intended return to the previously assigned altitude and it hits me. The damned LOC needle is full left, we'd flown through the LOC during the RA maneuver and were now right of course. That airport in front of us is NOT BFI* and we need to stop this descent at the assigned altitude and go get that LOC. Fortunately, this all happened such that capturing the altitude and LOC were easily accomplished in short order. But that moment of disorientation following the untimely RA had nearly distracted me into doing a very stupid thing. I was thankful that my flying partner's obvious discomfort had triggered my skepticism and prevented what could have become an unpleasant outcome. We laughed about it over beers and dinner later. Yeah, I understand how easily things like this can happen.

Fast forward 5 years and we're on vectors for a visual to San Jose, CA. (KSJC) This time I'm right seat for a guy doing his IOE in the Westwind. It's a little fuzzy but visibility is about 5 miles in the haze common to the area. It's near sunset though, and we really can't see much else but the cityscape. Only one of the long runways is open due to construction and no ILS is operative so we've got the SJC VOR tuned and the airport displayed on the GNS 530 for orientation. There is quite a few other planes on the freq and the controller is firing vectors out at machine gun pace. We did at least three heading changes and speed adjustments for sequencing. We've been instructed to follow a SWA 37 to the airport and can just make him out ahead of us. It looks like following him will have us intercepting a final for rwy 12R with about 4 or 5 miles to go. Just then ATC breaks us out with a new vector for re-sequencing.

After a couple more vectors, we're told the airport is ten o'clock and 5 miles, (at least that's what I thought I'd heard. On reflection it could have been "nine" miles) report in sight. I spot an airport in front of us and ask the PF if he sees it. He agrees so I inform ATC and he clears us for visual approach and contact tower. The PF starts maneuvering to line up on the runway as he begins descending and calling for flaps and gear. I notice the DME indicating 8 miles and the KSJC symbol on the GPS map offset to the left. About now, I realize that the airport doesn't look right either. "Crap", says I,"those are the blimp hangars and that's Moffet field"! We turn left with a big blast of thrust and spot SJC followed by a normal landing. Luckily we'd never gotten that close to landing at Moffet and there was no activity there that day so once again no harm done.

But no further proof that mistakes always wait for any opportunity is needed! If fate is the hunter, then the complacent are the hunted. Constant vigilance born of skepticism and a desire never to make dumb mistakes are well complimented by habitual crosschecking and the employment of established error trapping procedures. And yet still it happens...

*the field I lined up on was Renton. (KRNT)

I was driving by the field at Lake Charles at the time they should have landed and my passengers commented that both sets of runway lights were on. It was a crystal clear night with no haze, and low temperatures and therefore little humidity. Lake Charles has several large hangars and a terminal building. It also has navigation aids.

Southland field is several miles West near Sulpher, La and is a small single runway field with few buildings. There are a large number of chemical plants, all well illuminated, between Sulpher and Lake Charles. There is a large river and a big lake as well as the lights of the much larger city of Lake Charles. All clearly visible.

The tower is closed at that time of night as in many rural airfields with commuter service in the US, Not unusual.

To sum up, lazy or badly trained crews. Complacent comes to mind. This is the third occurance according to the local press. I notice Colgan as being the operator, is anyone watching their operation??

Speedbird 48.

To those pilots who post about their own personal experiences regarding inadvertantly mistaking other airfields for their intended destinations, thank you very much for your honesty, humbleness and willingness to share. A real breath of fresh air, far cry from those self aggrandizing posts about superior flying skills, yada, yada, yada.

Though I have never made such error in any of my landing approaches, I have turned onto wrong taxiways on the ground a couple of times. I have been even caught turning into the wrong gate once!

I am alway amazed at local US pilots making derogatory remarks ( at immigration lines ) about foreign pilots being reluctant to accept visual approaches. Come on guys, we probably fly to some US airports once in 6 months or once in a year; we are not familiar with all the visual landmarks, rivers, highways, race tracks etc. When ATC gives rapid fire visual clearances specifying visual landmarks, it is very dicey for anyone unfamiliar with the local scene to accept visual approaches.

The sniggers we get when we need to ask for repeat of ATC instructions, the disparaging remarks when we miss a high speed turn off, etc are all examples of small man syndrome. I have heard US and foreign pilots struggling with ATC in Asia too, or even in Europe.

OKhalsa

To keep it fair and balanced, I think I can safely say I have never seen an Asian pilot make a visual approach in Asia, unless you consider Kai Tak's IGS13 to be visual. I have, BTW, and done so a number of times when ATC allowed it. With today's moving map displays, one doesn't need local knowledge in every case. Even without moving maps, a visual to Kansai on a good night can easily be done...with approach nav backup, of course. A visual doesn't necessarily mean not selecting the appropriate nav references.

Language issues? Absolutely. Asia and Europe, both. Goes with the territory for a non-native speaker.

Being derogatory towards each other, justified or otherwise, is a two-way street. Not nice, but a fact of life. We've all had our share of it, even here. Just consider the source and press on.

6'0", BTW. :cool:

Just like Al Gore, I am going to let out a long sigh. It shows that you don't get to see much over in Asia too. Many of my colleagues and I had regularly made visual approaches into Kansai, Fukuoka, Penang, Don Muang, Phuket, Pusan and LAX.

Using moving map when you are asked to approach via a certain landmark.......sorry, my aircraft has no google map and I ain't that smart to be constructing waypoints to depict those landmarks below 10000ft.

I never said any of that rubbish, nor did I intend to send that message. The fact that you and OKhalsa took it that way speaks more negatively of your personal thought processes and bias than mine.

Al Gore? :ugh:

My dear Okhalsa, no need for the long sigh and any shaking of your head. He/she is the paragon of western psych war expert ( sadly I come from the west too ), subtly telling you that you are inferior. He/she is so superior, so bloody good at manual visual approaches and you poor Asian sods are useless, nowhere in his/her league. You get the message now. See how clever this individual is; that message is to be sunk subliminally into all and sundry reading this thread. That was the way the colonies were subjugated and such individuals are reminding you again, get it?