Lufthansa lands on construction site at EPKT
 

Today at 15:45 ZULU a CRJ700 landed on a new strip at EPKT airport which is still under construction. Allegedly it was LH1360 from Frankfurt. 51 souls on board, nobody got hurt. There's no taxiway yet available for this runway, so the plane may stay there for a while.

Disaster waiting to happen. The new runway is far more prominent. At minimums sometimes it's the only thing you see with the crazy VOR offset.

There's a big X at the threshold.......and no markings on the runway. I find this incident highly embarrassing for LH or any airline for that matter. I see they now have to use the same runway to take off on as there are no taxiways to vacate.

Well at least they got the right airfield unlike many others.

Dyson.
Correct!

It's a start. :ok:

This is somewhat embarrassing; i remember a story from the good old days in the USofA in Huntsville, AL; VERY LARGE airport and massive parallel runways with terminal in the middle. When pilots were cleared to land on 36L coming from the East, they were landing on the taxiway of 36R....

The officials toured all the operators implicated on these mishaps, reminding gently that a runway has BIG F.. Numbers on it....:)

Just imagine the tone of this thread if it had been Ryanair.

LH got permission from Polish CAA for "technical take off" from EPKT.
I expect they will just fly the patten and land on the proper runway this time to pick up pax and return to Frankfurt.

Some images:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...levant_count=1

Clearly visible here:

http://blog.katowice-airport.com/wp-...014/04/nds.jpg

More images here:

https://www.katowice-airport.com/pl/...alerie/337126#

Since April 2nd ILS is NOTAMed as INOP.
VOR 27 approach has 11 deg offset.

http://wstaw.org/m/2014/06/05/VOR_jpg_750x750_q85.jpg

The PIC asked for visual approach and got it granted.
Landing against the sun in the evening certainly contributed to the confusion.
Luckily Saturday evening there were no workers or machinery on the RWY.

They were rather lucky that there was no construction equipment present on the runway. Also, if the picture above is representative of the runways completion state, the incomplete areas in the middle section were obviously avoided.

An opportunity for learning that came without damage to anything but some egos this time.

The picture is from April, the runway is wider now, they are in the process of adding safety strips on both sides.

I am afraid it will have much bigger consequences for the pilots.

So what does the runway look like now? It is physically completed and marked with crosses painted on both ends - is it blank otherwise or does it show other runway markings that might lead to a mix-up?

Technical take-off:
 

I would be much more concerned about landing on a closed runway with an "X" than the wrong airport.

Whilst I'm more accustomed to white (or in snowy countries yellow) "X"'s on that runway there are no threshold markings, no centreline markings, I mean there's not a drop of white paint to be seen, were they blindfolded when they landed?

wondering whether same crew executed the technical takeoff, or they're not allowed to fly until investigation is performed

Since the runway has not been commissioned, does it even appear on approach charts/ airport diagrams as a closed runway?

I'm assuming that a text type Notam was in the briefing for the flight, but without a visual presentation of the under-construction runway relative to the operational runway, the crew might not have had a mental picture of what to expect.

Add in a low sun angle and, Voilà, embarassment and potential for serious hazard.

It's Notammed but doesn't appear on any Jepp airport diagrams. As of today they now mention it on the ATIS!