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Commercial Pilot Lands at Wrong Field
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Puzzles me. When they talk to ATC doesn't he smell a rat.:confused:
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The airfields are almost 15 km apart. Quite a large error. Apparently it is not the first time for these two fields either.
I wonder what happens to the pilot? If he is a senator he should get off lightly.:E |
This has happened many many times. Airlines typically require approach aids be used even for visuals to runways served by an IAP. Airplanes with GPS/FMS capability don't even need that for runway or airport ID. I can't explain why this keeps happening.
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Amounts to seeing what one expects to see - especially at night. Expecting airport lights, some runway lights appear....
I was in San Juan when a 737 inbound for TJSJ saw the lights of TJIG (the smaller GA airport) right under his nose (but ~8 miles closer) and landed there by mistake. Both have lagoons on short final - runways are 9-27 for TJIG and 8-26 or 10-28 for TJSJ - so again, he saw what he expected to see. One just has to be willing to always question the obvious and double-check everything (with ATC, GPS, any other information around). |
I can't explain why this keeps happening. I'm sure that if pilots would just get rid of their automation dependency, turn all the electronics off, and just fly the plane by good old fashioned 20-20 eyesight this type of incident would never ever happen. |
Err......I think most of the landings at wrong airfields were done by self proclaimed " visual by the seat of the pants " hand flying aces!
I had one old former USAF manual flying ace making a visual approach into PGUA twice instead of PGUM! When I pointed those out to him, I had some really creative excuses! No word of thanks, no acknowledgement but really creative excuses and a grumbly demeanor throughout the next few days we were paired together. |
Almost as bad as the RYR pilot who landed on a taxiway a few years back.
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Or the one who landed at the wrong Derry airport...at least they all walked away
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MountainBear & Babablackship:
Somehow I don't think automation over dependence or lack hand flying skills have much to do with landing at the wrong airport! := It seems that you both have some axe to grind regarding these two issues? Well that other thread is still there and available for you to provide your opinions... And by the way, visual approaches are a vital ATC capacity tool as well as saving considerable fuel and flight time when conditions permit. 2 minutes here, 3 minutes there, pretty soon you're talkin' real money! Actually in KLAS and a few other places, the time saved can be much more. pattern_is_full: I'll buy the expectation error argument as a contributing factor though. Good call. It at least aligns with my own experiences. What puzzles me is why a pilot doesn't verify what they think they know when there are readily available means of verification at their fingertips. Do they also accept that the gear is down and locked simply because the handle is down? I would presume that at least one of them usually looks at the indicators before believing that. Same thing for most flying tasks I'd say. Crosscheck and verify. So what is it? Distraction? Overconfidence? Sloppy attitude toward flying? All of the preceding and more? Hey I realized pretty early in flying that I'm pretty good but not perfect! Even my own hard bitten and suspicious nature has temporarily failed me on occasion. I've been tempted by the wrong airport or runway quite a few times. But only very briefly until the "hey that don't seem right" moment that results from crosschecking. And all those taxiways that look better from the air than the runway! KSEA had a bunch of oopsies there. KLAS too. Big Xs and serpentine taxiway center lines seem to help somewhat. Yeah even though I love to hand fly visuals, tuning an ILS or loading a GPS approach seems like cheap insurance to me. And what about the other guy sitting along side? Man or mouse, squeak up! Take part in the process! Even though it might not be your turn to fly, be a pilot, a good PNF. So there's all these opportunities to trap errors like landing at the wrong airport, yet it still continues to happen. If nothing else maybe it serves to inspire everyone else to be a little more aware. Maybe they crosscheck even if they're a little tired and don't think it's strictly necessary. I sure hope so. |
Pattern is full:
Amounts to seeing what one expects to see - especially at night. Expecting airport lights, some runway lights appear.... I was in San Juan when a 737 inbound for TJSJ saw the lights of TJIG (the smaller GA airport) right under his nose (but ~8 miles closer) and landed there by mistake. Both have lagoons on short final - runways are 9-27 for TJIG and 8-26 or 10-28 for TJSJ - so again, he saw what he expected to see. Do you remember what year and which airline? |
Almost as bad as the RYR pilot who landed on a taxiway a few years back. |
That's right Ryan, many airfields have disused runways as taxiways, although it sounds impossible to do it does happen, many airfield briefs have information regarding locations of nearby disused airfields, new runways under construction, etc....all help to improve situational awareness....
however, as has been alluded to in previous posts, its a team in the flight deck, if something doesn't look right it probably isn't, i'd rather say something and it turns out my fears were unfounded than say nothing at all and let things go horribly wrong.... never say never, it can always happen to you no matter how good you think you are |
Yes, if they (and you) have ILS, NDB, anything; even on a visual approach, tune it and crosscheck..
Colleague mentioned flying an air taxi in to Lossiemouth. Given a radar descent and released downwind for a visual circuit. Looked right and there was the runway. Called Tower downwind and finals - cleared to land - easy. Landed, cleared - and noticed - lots of Nimrods! Oh buggah! he thought. SO - continued back down taxiway, had a bloody good look around, and took off again with a right turn to continue downwind at the REAL Lossie. Lossie knew what had happened, Kinloss knew what had happened, he knew what had happened and it was tacitly agreed that it would not be spoken of. Were there any clues? Yes, of course there were! One r/w was 23 and the other 26 for a start but, as you've said already, he was suckered into seeing what he expected to see. |
I used to fly for a corporation whose 'former chief pilot'* not only landed at the wrong airport, but in fact overflew the airport of intended landing, which was on the mainland and landed on an island airport just off the coast. They were supposed to land at Cancun, Mexico but instead landed on the island of Cozumel. Admittedly it was at night, but it was a clear night and the owner of the aircraft and the other passengers all realized he had overflown Cancun. But the 'former chief pilot' paid no attention to their objections.
* Shortly after that, I was the chief pilot of the company. |
They were supposed to land at Cancun, Mexico but instead landed on the island of Cozumel. Admittedly it was at night, but it was a clear night and the owner of the aircraft and the other passengers all realized he had overflown Cancun What a dullard:} |
Wrong Airfield
From Memoirs The students at ETPS without former jet experience and from countries using a different language than English had assimilation difficulties which the rest of us rapidly came to recognise. We did our best to help compensate by many fascinating discussions on flying, English social customs and behaviour. Major Franki Frankini from Italy had an unusual background in that he had been a wartime fighter pilot with combat experience. Discussions revealed that he had actually flown a mission in which one of our tutors had been one of his adversaries in a dogfight. He also graphically described an occasion when he manoeuvred on to the tail of a Mustang and "I shoot and I shoot all my bullets into the Mustang and it just fly away." Later, following Italy's capitulation, Franki volunteered to fly Mustangs with the Allies against the Germans. So here was a fighter pilot who flew on both sides during World War II. Confusion often occurred with air traffic control instructions despite the care taken by the controllers to use standard words and phrases with clear English diction. It was not uncommon for pilots to mistake Blackbush, the civil airfield 10 miles from Farnborough, for home base. I found myself doing an initial approach on Blackbush one misty afternoon. I soon recognised my error as the layout of the airfield became clear. Not so with the Egyptian, Vickery Zarr, He followed through to land and when he went to turn off the runway on to a taxiway with which he was familiar at Farnborough, the resultant radio chatter became really hilarious. It was normal practice under these circumstances for Farnborough to retain control over the offending pilot whilst liaising with Blackbush over a telephone tie-line. So those of us on the same frequency became party to a fascinating sequence of instructions and responses. Blackbush was base to a fleet of civil Ambassador type aircraft and it became obvious that one of these was preparing for take off at the holding point when Farnborough said to Vickery " Take the next runway exit left and then the taxiway back to the holding point." Vickery said " I do not understand where I am and what I should do. I have some fuel left and can fly again for 20 minutes." Farnborough came back with "Roger, taxi straight ahead to the Ambassador." Vickery did not respond so Farnborough repeated the instruction. Vickery then came back in a faltering voice with "Please, please, I do not er er I do not wish to see the Ambassador today." One of the tutors on the radio broke in with " Vickery you idiot, he means the Ambassador aircraft waiting for take off at the holding point." Meanwhile the rest of us had convulsions of laughter at the expense of the hapless and confused Egyptian. We Australians were sometimes confused by different meanings given to words. The RAE were experimenting with a rapidly configurable inflatable aircraft capable of being carried around on a light road vehicle. The wings were inflatable and normally folded into a container. The engine was fitted with a small air compressor which inflated the wings and fuselage to maintain form and strength of its delta shape. Some intrepid test pilot would occasionally take it for a flight. The craft was always referred to by the British as the Durex Delta. This to us conceptualised a delta aircraft held together by Durex brand transparent sticky tape as marketed in Australia at the time. But the British did not have Durex sticky tape. Their Durex was a brand of condom. I soon learned about this when my comments in mixed company one evening about having seen the Durex delta flying that day were followed by someone repeatedly kicking me in the shins beneath the table. Flying in the northern hemisphere often puzzled me as I found I was less able to instinctively know where north should be. I had to take extra care to refresh my orientation with the compass. To this day I am unable to specify the basis for having some in-built directional capacity whilst in the southern hemisphere. |
I guess the the term visual approach backed up by navaids really does not mean what it's supposed to... does it:=. Oh well.:(
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My favorite visual approach aid is the gasometer with LH and an arrow on pointing to Heathrow to stop the numbers of people who saw Northolt and tried to land there. And a Pan Am 707 succeeded.
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A Navy Wessex pilot of my aquaintance landed by night and asked ATC for taxy instructions. ATC said they couldn't see him asked where he was. He said he was near the big airliners.
ATC told him to take off again and taxi 5 nm NE, from Lasham to where he should be, at RAF Odiham. |
I'm surprised none has mentioned the Northwest that landed in the wrong country! :O:O
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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). |
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. |
I may b e wrong, as usual, but I seem to recall that several aircraft
have landed at Northolt rather than Heathrow? |
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 |
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. |
Con,
* Shortly after that, I was the chief pilot of the company. |
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. |
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. |
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! |
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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). Almost as bad as the RYR pilot who landed on a taxiway a few years back. |
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. |
How about the airliner that landed in the River Nile at Khartoum. Any truth in the story that the river was mistaken for the runway?
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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. |
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. |
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! |
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.:sad: |
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