Oh dear, commercial pilots gettting lost!
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Goma and Gisenyi are two strips with similar headings about 1km apart and in different countries. Stroke the cat on that one and land at Gisenyi instead of Goma, chances are you'll have an opportunity to sample Rwandan cuisine de chooky! Problem is that the Gisenyi strip is also easier to see approaching goma from the South so mistakes easily made.... 
Watch your variation
Caveat 20 yr. old memory -- towns may be inexact.
A scheduled Canadian Pacific 737 from Inuvik? at the top of the MacKenzie delta to Cambridge Bay? at the NW end of Hudson Bay ended up at Churchill, hundreds of miles off course.
NDB only airways, weather and proximity to the Magnetic Pole played a role.
Not the only Arctic flight that went way off course.
A scheduled Canadian Pacific 737 from Inuvik? at the top of the MacKenzie delta to Cambridge Bay? at the NW end of Hudson Bay ended up at Churchill, hundreds of miles off course.
NDB only airways, weather and proximity to the Magnetic Pole played a role.
Not the only Arctic flight that went way off course.
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I heard a while ago about a pilot flying something big, possibly 747 that almost landed on Essendon (small airport) rwy 26 instead of Melbourne (international) rwy 27. These airports are very close to each other, but that's hardly a good enough excuse. Lucky they realised what was going before they landed, would be fun trying to pull up a 747 on a 3 foot runway or whatever it is 
When I was on the Boeing 707 (in the 1970s!) there was an item on the landing checklist which read "Airfield and Runway Identified and Cross Checked"!
I don't know which is worse - landing at the wrong airport or the wrong runway at the right one!
I don't know which is worse - landing at the wrong airport or the wrong runway at the right one!
Nom de PPRuNe
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I attended an airshow at Woodford many years ago.
I eagerly awaited a promised fast and low start to a display by an F-111. It was going to be one of the better displays, I reckoned.
"He's just radioed in, ladies and gentlemen, so if you look to your left you may catch a glimpse of him coming towards you " was the jist of the commentary.
Then.........zilch ! No F-111. Commentary mysteriously ceased, too.
I made enquiries and later discovered that the pilot had mistaken Manchester International for Woodford-Ever-So-Local and had buzzed the place at just below Mach 1.
OOOOPS !
I eagerly awaited a promised fast and low start to a display by an F-111. It was going to be one of the better displays, I reckoned.
"He's just radioed in, ladies and gentlemen, so if you look to your left you may catch a glimpse of him coming towards you " was the jist of the commentary.
Then.........zilch ! No F-111. Commentary mysteriously ceased, too.
I made enquiries and later discovered that the pilot had mistaken Manchester International for Woodford-Ever-So-Local and had buzzed the place at just below Mach 1.
OOOOPS !
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In 1993 I worked at Hanoi's Noi Bai Airport as an electical engineer completing a Cat 1 upgarde. After a short break I was arriving back in Hanoi on the local airline, Hang Kong.
Just proir to landing the Captain announced we would be landing on Hanoi's runway 26L. (Correct heading I think from memory!) Working at the airport I knew there was only one runway but didn't think anything of it.
After executing a perfect landing on the parallel taxiway the Captain announced "Ladies and Gentleman, thank you for flying Hang Kong Viet Nam....it will the last time I do....."
And that is a true story.
CB
Just proir to landing the Captain announced we would be landing on Hanoi's runway 26L. (Correct heading I think from memory!) Working at the airport I knew there was only one runway but didn't think anything of it.
After executing a perfect landing on the parallel taxiway the Captain announced "Ladies and Gentleman, thank you for flying Hang Kong Viet Nam....it will the last time I do....."
And that is a true story.
CB
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Heard a story of an Aussie airline pilot flying in the Uk back in the 70s. He was due to fly from Southend to Calais. He took off, flew South over the Thames Estuary, trawled up and down the North Kent coast, couldn't find Calais, and so went back to Southend.
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I remember many years ago overhearing on the RT a BEA Trident skipper, outbound from LHR, reporting overhead BPK VOR and a slightly bemused controller questioning his request to climb direct to CLN VOR. The aforementioned skipper replied, "Oh hell, I've just remembered, we're going to Glasgow this morning, Amsterdam was yesterday, thought we were going there again today". True. He got a rapid re-routing up north.
Reminds me of a mate that was flying air taxi from EMA to EDI one day many moons ago. It was a lovely clear day as he flew up over the lake district at FL 80 on airways when a passenger tapped him on the shoulder and asked "What time will we be getting to Belfast?".
Without batting an eyelid he looked at his watch and said "about half an hour". He then spoke to ATC and said "You are not going to believe this but my passengers want to go to Belfast!". Reply from Scottish Airways "They can be awkward, cant they, but you are cleared to turn left and proceed direct to Isle of Man, etc.
To this day he wonders whether the passengers really knew what had happened!
Without batting an eyelid he looked at his watch and said "about half an hour". He then spoke to ATC and said "You are not going to believe this but my passengers want to go to Belfast!". Reply from Scottish Airways "They can be awkward, cant they, but you are cleared to turn left and proceed direct to Isle of Man, etc.
To this day he wonders whether the passengers really knew what had happened!
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There have been 'touch and go' incidents in African Game Parks and Sharjah was a popular spot for premature touch-downs instead of Dubai - too many other similar to repeat here - many were the result of early monitored approach SOPs, PNF\H and PF/H looking at two different things - one is spot on LOC/GP to correct RWY, other sees pretty lights, calls 'I have control', or similar and, without even a glance at the instruments or even sweeping his vision field up and ahead, finds he needs rather a lot of footwork to stop the thing on what was supposed to be a very long RWY - meantime, the other chap has slumped into his corner, wondering if he will ever be allowed an actual landing, so makes no calls - hasn't even noticed his nicely set-up cross-bars are off the scale. The other version is that same bloke looks up from luvvly approach, forgets instruments, 'cos he has nice warm lights ahead ( wrong ones ), no VASI, or similar, or they don't work,etc - anyway, it's another way of running out of tyres, too - and the debate still continues with even parts of same carrier adopting different SOPs on different fleets, I understand - I reckon I've read more on that debate, in the past, than on any other subject I can think of - so don't start again, chaps - it will go on for ever - and there won't be an answer that everybody agrees with, is my guess 
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Not surprisingly, Swiss Int'l Airline (www.swiss.com) never translated into english a Press release in German and French published on its very same website on Dec. 11th' 01.
It tells of a Saab 340 chartered flight around the Matterhorn where the pilot flew to Aosta (Italy) instead of Sion (Switzerland).
The pilot noticed his mistake only when he was low enough to see the buildings of the airport. He resumed power without having to touch down and gave some kind of funny explanation to his pax. Apparently, he had not paid much attention to ATC, nor to the charts.
That was the funny part of the story. Now, the sad one:
the incident took place on March 21st '99. Swiss (formely Crossair) opened an inquiry more than a year later, on Dec. 11th '01, only three weeks after the same pilot died alongwith his F/O and 22 pax and cabin crew on a Berlin-Zurich flight at Bassedorf, knowingly flying the approach too low (see the related "Bassedorf" thread on pprune).
It tells of a Saab 340 chartered flight around the Matterhorn where the pilot flew to Aosta (Italy) instead of Sion (Switzerland).
The pilot noticed his mistake only when he was low enough to see the buildings of the airport. He resumed power without having to touch down and gave some kind of funny explanation to his pax. Apparently, he had not paid much attention to ATC, nor to the charts.
That was the funny part of the story. Now, the sad one:
the incident took place on March 21st '99. Swiss (formely Crossair) opened an inquiry more than a year later, on Dec. 11th '01, only three weeks after the same pilot died alongwith his F/O and 22 pax and cabin crew on a Berlin-Zurich flight at Bassedorf, knowingly flying the approach too low (see the related "Bassedorf" thread on pprune).
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Anthony,
I was in Mach tower when that F111 did its "flyby". Two miles in front of a landind Bac111, and as hebroke hard left, he passed about a mile behind a deparing Bac111
We were looking down on him as he flew inside the piers
watp,iktch
I was in Mach tower when that F111 did its "flyby". Two miles in front of a landind Bac111, and as hebroke hard left, he passed about a mile behind a deparing Bac111
We were looking down on him as he flew inside the piers watp,iktch
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Red Arrows
In 2000 (or it may have been 2001), the Red Arrows were booked for the Torquay Regatta. All the crowds gathered and waited. The RA's went to Brixham instead - much to the astonishment of the folks at Brixham and much to the very un-delighted throngs standing around Torquay.
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..... And then any rotary pilot will be well aware of the hazard of landing on the wrong rig or platform, especially in those fields with loads of decks all close together. Been done so often, it hardly rates a mention.
Minor excuse over some fixed wingers is that many oil/gas fields just have one NDB to cover all installations, or several but all with the same frequency (only one should be in use at a time).
Final "seniority" check is to read the name painted on the deck, before putting your wheels on it. And to remember your coffee and food is only on the right one ....
Then there was the Big Airlines 747 who landed/went around late at Cardiff instead of the engineering base at the nearby RAF station.
Its all too easy, don't blame these guys, just congratulate yourselves when you do get to where you hoped, we do such a difficult job in the face of adversity.
Minor excuse over some fixed wingers is that many oil/gas fields just have one NDB to cover all installations, or several but all with the same frequency (only one should be in use at a time).
Final "seniority" check is to read the name painted on the deck, before putting your wheels on it. And to remember your coffee and food is only on the right one ....
Then there was the Big Airlines 747 who landed/went around late at Cardiff instead of the engineering base at the nearby RAF station.
Its all too easy, don't blame these guys, just congratulate yourselves when you do get to where you hoped, we do such a difficult job in the face of adversity.
