Boeing 747 Dreamlifter lands at wrong airport
 

A Boeing 747 Dreamlifter landed at the wrong airport at around 21:38 local time. It landed at Jabara airport in Kansas but was scheduled to land at McConnell Air Force Base (IAB) in Kansas.
The runway at the airport is not long enough to take off again.

Interesting enough the crew of two was not aware of which airport they landed. For minutes they thought it was Beech Factory airport. In fact they landed north of Beech at Jabara airport.

According @LiveATC the DreamLifter was 25mile from field at 9:12pm -- cleared for the ARNAV GPS approach to 19L at IAB

Jabara airport has a single runway and is located north-east of the city of Wichita.
McConnell Air Force Base is located in the south east of the city, has two parallel runways and is much larger than Jabara airport.

Both Jabara and McConnell have runways that are running more or less north-south.

For a map showing the position of both airports see this link
https://mapsengine.google.com/map/ed...M.kJkZGuBc9xd4

The Boeing 747 Dreamlifter is a modified Boeing 747 Freighter. It is used by Boeing to fly Boeing 787 aircraft parts like wings from various locations worldwide to Seattle. At Seattle the parts are asssembled to a complete aircraft.

The aircraft are flown and operated by Atlas Air. 2 persons on board. aircraft landed safely with no damage.

It appears the aircraft is not able to backtrack the runway. Boeing sents a tug to turn the aircraft around.

Massive Plane Mistakenly Lands At A Tiny Kansas Airport And Is Stuck There

photo
https://twitter.com/KAKEnews/status/...033216/photo/1

Now that is a real USA pilot skill 100%

Yeah m Sh*t happens! Not the first one and not the last one !

Lots of work to do now, like removing all unecessary things on board, pump out some fuel and then taking off on 6000ft should not really be a problem.

Still amazes me that this can happen. Routeing, navaids, onboard systems, visual clues all ignored?

Anyway, 6100ft is hardly "tiny". Many 747's (including 400's) have landed at an airfield called Kemble in the UK, with runway length about the same. Not many leave again (it's a centre of parting-out activity), but I expect a few have, and shouldn't be a problem with light load/fuel and a bit of wind in the right direction.

You betcha pard! :ok: Nobody hurt. Wish we could say the same about some other recent screwups...

Yeah, 6,000' won't be much of a problem at light weight. Except perhaps for the embarrassment...

An honest mistake and no one is hurt, no equipment damaged.
Hey, Singapore resident - much better than a Singapore Airlines 747 captain who took of from a closed runway in Taipei in 2000 and killed over 80 people in the process... :uhoh:

Reports suggest that when the aircraft had touched down and the crew asked McConnell for taxi instructions, only to be told "well you haven't landed here", they still couldn't work out where they were and believed they had landed at the Beech Factory Airport (KBEC, about midway between Jabara and McConnell).

Not too bad at all, at least they landed in the right state:}

I gather these pilots belonged to that well known F troop tribe?? :rolleyes:

Just makes you wonder how they find their way home from the airport? :rolleyes:

Something similar to the Saudi 747 screw up at Chennai many years ago . That also landed at Tambaram AF Station length 7000 .

Tower: “Do you know which airport you’re at?”
Pilot: “Well we think we have a pretty good pulse — how many airports directly to the south … are there?”

https://soundcloud.com/buzzfeednews/...fb-air-traffic

Boeing sent a tug from its Wichita facilities to the airport, to try and turn around the Dreamlifter, but that could take some time …

.....

Because on the way to the airport early Thursday the tug broke down.

:)

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BZlGrGcCQAEFbaL.jpg

The aircraft are operated by Atlas Air, not Boeing.

the entire recording is on liveatc.net

Dreamlifter lands at wrong airport | LiveATC.net

you have to feel a bit sorry for them, it took them a while to find out where they had landed.

Surely the EGPWS would be going bananas with the aircraft landing at an airport that wasn't the destination.

How do you reconcile what you are seeing outside with what is programmed in the FMS and displaying on the NAV Display?

:confused:

Just imagine what the guys at the flight school are gonna think when they go to do their run up...:)




You know it's bad when you have to ask ATC where you are

"Giant 4241 heavy, student pilot, first solo":O

Tug
 

The tug appears not to have a registration plate. Maybe that's why the police have pulled it over.

noticed not all links of recordings of ATC actually work.

This link worked for me.
It is a 6 minutes, 41 sec sound clip of the Boeing 747 working with McConnell AFB air traffic controller.

A most remarkable conversation. The cree of the Atlas Air aircraft is completely lost.

McConnell AFB ATC leared to land 19L. Then a few minutes later a very modest pilot voice can be heared:
We just landed at the wrong airport

Interesting enough the pilot believes they landed at Beech Factory Airport (KBEC). When McConnell controller asks the pilot "you are at BEC??" the pilot response is "we think so"

Beech Factory airport is located roughly in the middle between McConnell Air force base and Colonel James Jabara airport.
The crew probably were mistaken by three airports close to eachother all three having runways running in the same direction (more or less north/south)

The pilot then asks for a tower frequency and coordinates of BEC. Then a couple of minutes of communication between McConnell and the Atlas Air trying to find out at which airport they actually landed.

After 5 minutes after landing the McConnell AFB controller tells the pilot he must have landed at Jabara airport seeing the radar track.
The controller even had to spell out the airport name to the pilot.

The pilot then confirms he is at Jabara.

A pretty carreer limiting move I guess.

https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url...origin=twitter

Something very wrong here (obviously!), but I'm suggesting the navaids, or reading of same, on this a/c?

Landing 8 miles North of dest field, then carrying out a long discussion with dest tower to query current position??!!

Super VC-10,

In some states, you only have to have a registration plate on the back ;)